I had to disconnect the down pipe from the manifold on my S3, but then it's got a Defender 90 engine and a pre-engaged starter - I would have thought that your starter would have come off OK but clearly not!
The next problem you're likely to have is when you connect the down pipe back on and two of the nuts will strip their threads. You'll have to remove the manifolds and try to get the downpipe studs out, two of which will snap. You'll then order another exhaust manifold and a bolt kit and try to put it all back together. You'll find that the bolt kit doesn't contain the studs joining the inlet to the exhaust manifold and so you'll try to remove them from the old manifold. Three will come out OK but the last one will snap off. You'll order some new ones, but they won't arrive before the weekend and so you'll be Land Rover less for another week.... (guess how I know).
Good luck anyway...!