I'll do some interior photos later, looks fabulous in blue. Initial thoughts on seeing the car for real, has a 'chunky' presence, the standard 20" wheels look great up close, better than I expected, the silver coloured items add rather than detract from the appearance - like it, a lot.
Did all the handover stuff, wished I'd checked under the boot floor - jack and toolkit are missing, I have whinged.
Sat in the car-park for 20 minutes and got satnav programmed for the trip home, the touch sensitive User Interface is super slick, responsive and intuitive (unlike that b9 RS4 that I had - evil to use). The interior, the fabulous seats - with blue stitching and blue Alcantara is simple gorgeous, looked for the supposed crappy plastics and couldn't find any, maybe the front door pockets but they are heavily web-ribbed out of sight for rigidity and still feel like quality stuff - it's a genuinely nice place to be. The virtual cockpit is much improved over the B9 RS4 and now is much more logically laid out - there is a lot of information available concurrently and I need to have an extended tinker with it.
Got on the road with Drive Select set to Auto (will I ever learn?), it is just as unpredictable as the 8U. Steering is completely different, 'Progressive Steering', less steering input required at speed, feels much, much more responsive to the point of having to be recalibrate one's input. Ride quality on 20s is very similar to the 8U RSQ3, maybe a fraction firmer - cornering prowess is similar to the 8U, entertaining and fun. Brakes - 6 pot calipers vs the 8 pot Brembo jobs on the 8U, they are comparable formidable stoppers - very impressed and not expected.
Performance is similar, even when not trying it's swift, urgent, the exhaust system (no sports exhaust) set to 'Pronounced' in Drive Select delivers a nice low rumble, I haven't felt thus far that anything is getting artificially pumped through the B&O. Talking of which the B&O in the F3 sounds comparable to Bose in the 8U which is high-praise indeed - simply one of the best car-audio systems I've ever encountered.
It's clearly a great car and feels like a keeper - more to follow.