Audi A1 Sportback 30 TFSI Sport 2018 UK first drive

But then, what else can Audi do? Could this car have had both the distinctiveness and charm to compete with a Mini and that ‘Russian doll’ Audi-brand design authenticity that the firm seems compelled to repeat on all of its models? It seems doubtful. And the A1 certainly seems a more coherent-looking car to this tester in Sport trim than with the bigger air intakes and extra garnish of S line specification.

Step inside, then. Even in a monochrome trim combination, the A1’s interior looks quite daring, and its layout and themes speak of technical precision and technological advancement in the way you’d expect them to. You get digital instruments and an 8.8in touchscreen infotainment system as standard (a generous tally of standard equipment is one of the reasons that Audi’s been a bit bold with the car’s pricing), although both are upgraded as part of an optional £1650 Technology Pack that our test car had fitted.

You don’t get full leather upholstery on an A1 unless you plump for an S line Style Edition model. And, moreover, you don’t quite get the same perceived quality in the A1 that you get in other, bigger, pricier Audis. There is hard, slightly shiny moulded plastic on the inside of the doors and a little more of it to find if you go hunting around the cabin at lower levels. If anything, it’s the layout and appearance of the A1’s primary interior fittings, and its onboard technology, that lifts the car’s cabin ambience above that of other related VW Group superminis; it’s not perceived quality.

The sum total of our test experience of this car has thus far been delivered by A1s with bigger alloy wheels and with Audi’s sport suspension. On standard suspension and 16in rims, the car deals with British roads decently well. It feels a touch more firmly suspended and tautly damped that the average supermini, and so it’s less compliant at town speeds than some but more controlled and assured at A-road and motorway speeds. Now and again, the suspension feels as if it could do with a little bit more sidewall and wheel travel in order to easily soak up the full range of bumps that UK roads will throw at it. But overall, rolling refinement is pretty good.

And that’s indicative of a wider approach from Audi to make the A1 seem premium-worthy by imbuing it with dynamic qualities you’d expect of a bigger car. In standard trim, at least, the A1 isn’t aiming for the same driver appeal of a Mini or even a Ford Fiesta. For body control and handling response, it’s certainly a closer match for a Seat Ibiza than a VW Polo – so it’s plainly not soft or laid back. But it’s not desperately agile or absorbing either.

The car has that slow initial steering response you expect of German cars, so you need to get a good fifth of a turn of lock applied before it really starts to rotate. But when it does, the car feels small and light and corners flat and keen, with a good balance of grip, and even a little bit of fun factor if you go looking for it. This is a predictably ‘Audi’, rounded dynamic compromise, then. Not a car to make you as enthused as a Mini Cooper might – but not one to test your patience with its terrierish character either.

The VW Group’s 1.0-litre, three-cylinder turbocharged engine operates with a distant but detectable three-cylinder thrum, but it makes useful torque at accessible crankspeeds and seemed to this tester to give the A1 a very respectable outright turn of outright speed. It also revs willingly enough; it doesn’t get coarser as it’s called to really work; and it works through a manual gearbox with a snicketty and precise feel, whose well-defined, solid-feeling shift quality you can linger over if you want to – or that you can confidently rush through the gate when occasion calls for it.

A Mini Cooper’s 1.5-litre turbo triple is probably a better engine in outright terms – but if that engine’s wider ‘Mini’ packaging leaves you looking for alternatives, you won’t find much to object to here. And if you want more power, or to avoid that three-cylinder thrum, Audi allows for that with the 1.5-litre ‘35 TFSI’ A1.