Ford Focus RS v Civic Type-R v Hyundai i30 N v Peugeot 308 GTi v Megane RS 2018 Track Comparison

The Renault Megane RS is one of the great hot hatches and now it’s time for the third generation to launch in Australia.

That also means it’s time to find out if it’s got the talent to take on and beat the best the opposition can throw at it in a tough track test steered by our own Bathurst 1000 winner Luke Youlden.

There’s been a couple of consistent elements to our hot hatch track testing recently; hot weather and flat tracks.

But the latest congregation at the temple of turbocharged twin cams, prompted by the arrival in Australia of the Renault Megane RS 280, involves some significant differences.

First off, the weather is freezing cold, low temps exacerbated by an arctic wind and scudding showers.

Secondly, we have hills. Haunted Hills in fact. Yep, we are at Bryant Park, perched on a tumbling slope at the western end of the Latrobe Valley in Victoria.

In the course of its 1300m length, there is barely a flat piece of bitumen in sight. It’s like a mini-Bathurst!

It’s such a contrast from the flatlands and high-temps of Winton and Wodonga, where we have recently brought the hot hatch crowd together.

Our gun track tester Luke Youlden – have we mentioned yet he won the Bathurst 1000 in 2017? Wahoo! – is excited by the challenges Bryant Park brings.

“I love it,” he enthuses. “Just the undulations, blind corners, cars are loaded when you’ve got to try and brake and turn them, especially in a front-wheel drive car because there are lots of rises where it is trying to put its power down.

“The car has to work well here otherwise it highlights a bad chassis. It’s not a horsepower track at all. If the car turns and — especially — puts its power down it will be fine.

“It’s not a massive braking track either, because you are not carrying enough speed into the corner to really brake hard. It’s more about carrying mid-corner speed and trying to get the car to turn.

“It’s probably the perfect place to test a bunch of front-wheel drive hot hatches.”

The Honda Civic Type R ruled the roost at both Winton and Wodonga, knocking off the Ford Focus RS in November and the Hyundai i30 N in April.

Well, Type R, RS (in Limited Edition form his time) and i30 N are back to battle the third-generation Megane RS and its French compatriot the Peugeot 308 GTi.

So, five four-cylinder turbos between 1.6 and 2.3 litres in capacity with a power range between 200kW and 257KW and max torque outputs between 330Nm and 440Nm. All five use six-speed manual gearboxes.

The RS owns the big numbers, the Pug is at the bottom of the pile. But countering that, the RS is the lardiest at 1543kg, while the Pug is the fleaweight at just 1178kg.

Four are front-wheel drive, all five have some form of limited-slip differential up front, while the Ford’s trick Twinster all-wheel drive system also sends grunt rearwards, splits it between the rear wheels appropriately and even overspeeds the rear wheels slightly compared to the front to aid turn-in.

Speaking of the rear- and front-ends… We’ve got a combination of different specs here; everything is strut up-front, although the Type R and Megane use variations designed to separate steering and suspension forces and thus (theoretically) quench torque steer.

At the rear the Ford, Honda and Hyundai use independent multi-links while the French cars adopt torsion beams and miss out on driver-adjustable adaptive dampers.

But the Megane stands out from the crowd with its 4Control rear-wheel steering. Our test car also comes with the optional Cup chassis that includes a Torsen limited-slip diff and Brembo brake callipers. Brembos are already standard on the Ford and Honda, while the Pug gets Alcons up-front.

Everything here rolls on 19-inch tyres and wheels except for the Honda, which gets 20s. As part of the LE pack the Ford gets super-sticky Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 rubber and lighter forged alloy wheels.

The GTi is on Michelin Super Sports, the Honda’s on Continental SportContacts, the Hyundai is using Pirelli P Zeros and the Renault has Bridgestone Potenzas.

All of this tricky tech is covered by a price range that spreads from only $42,990 (with Luxury Pack before on-roads) for the Hyundai to $56,990 for the Ford RS.

We could delve further into the pricing and equipment but that’s Ken Gratton’s job as part of the road test component of this exercise.

Here we’re just worried about going fast, so let’s get into it. As usual, it’s tyres at placard, all driver-assist systems off and any button marked ‘Race’ pressed. Timing is GPS recorded.

Fuss free. That was essentially Luke’s summation of the best car Hyundai has yet built.

“To me it does everything well,” Luke reported after his 1:04.623sec effort in the N. “It stops well, turns well, the gearshift is really easy to use, steering feel is really good, it sits quite flat in the corners.

“It wheelspins a little as you would expect, but nothing major.

“It doesn’t do anything exceptionally well, but it doesn’t do anything bad, it does everything about right.”

Job done then.

From fuss-free to frenetic. The Pug was quicker than the Hyundai at 1:03.886, but Luke was made to earn every 10th.

“It’s an angry car,” he smiles. “It’s got a raspy growl and makes all the right noises. It has really good response.

“It’s just the actual horsepower, it feels like it has more than it actually does. In terms of brakes it stops really well, but it does battle to put its power down.

“It does have more mid-corner understeer [than the Hyundai] and I really felt that would hold it back, but it’s actually quite a fast time. It might just be understeering at a slightly more elevated level of grip. It gets it done in a straight-line a bit more.

“It’s harder to drive, so you have to have your wits about you. It’s typical front-wheel drive high-powered feel. Lots of wheelspin, although it doesn’t torque steer or anything.

“But you can have plenty of steering lock on and the thing is wheelspinning and moving left.

“The rear-end is planted. It’s absolutely planted. What lets this thing down is its mid-corner understeer.”

No doubt Luke felt right at home in the Honda. It’s time of 1:02.579 meant it was more than a second faster than anything that had gone before.

“It just feels closer to a race car than anything else so far,” he grinned. “It’s got a slightly heavier steering feel and everything just feels tighter.

“It doesn’t feel quite as sloppy, so everything is quite responsive. I guess the other thing I notice – apart from the fact it keeps turning mid-corner when everything else is understeering too much – is when you pull third gear it accelerates.

“I wouldn’t say the others are lazy, but this thing is still accelerating when you are pulling gears rather than labouring and then getting back up to speed. It just keeps pulling.”

For all that speed though, Luke still hankered after the Pug.

“I have a bit of a sweet spot for the Peugeot, just for the fact it is a little more raw.”

Luke’s spent a fair bit of time in the Focus RS over the last couple of years, but this was his first taste of the LE. It’s combo of sticky rubber, helical diff and Twinster all-paw turn left him shaking his head.

And his 1:01.307 was mind-boggling for all of us. It was more than a second quicker than the time he set here in 2017 in a standard RS.

“What’s unbelievable is you almost drive it the wrong way,” he recounted. “You turn it and you get on the gas. And the earlier you get on the gas the more it turns.

“I haven’t noticed that feel before,” he mused. “I dunno, maybe I haven’t driven this way before.

“I found it out by accident,” Luke reveals. “The thing was having a big push and I was just thinking let’s see what happens if I get on the gas here … and it worked!

“So now I am just trying to get on the gas as early as I can.

“Effectively, you are on the gas three car-lengths earlier than the Honda everywhere.”

There’s a second right there.

All-wheel drive provides more logical, expected advantages over the front-drivers too. No traction issues exiting the tight corners is one, coping better with the constant undulations is another.

“Front-wheel drive cars with lots of power really do battle over the undulations, especially if you are also turning ... If the thing is not working as well, you have to come off the gas and that’s all you can do.”

To watch, these were the wildest laps. The right-hander at the top of the track is a late apex right-hander with concrete walls either side and Luke would pile in there in third gear with the Megane’s rear-end swaying to the left.

No wonder his (printable) nickname is ‘11-10ths’!

For all the drama the Renault’s 1:02.894 time was only good enough to claim third spot on the podium.

“It’s quite dynamic, it actually turns,” remarked Luke. “It has an oversteer tendency on corner entry and you can always balance that out with throttle to make that neutral.

“So what I found quite early on is you bomb in a little too fast and it has the oversteer to help you turn.

“It’s unusual for a car to be that loose on entry. I was quite impressed with it.”

But then came the downside, trying to get back on the gas. Despite the Perfo-Hub strut design there’s torque steer in abundance.

“It just wheelspins its head off,” Luke laments.

“It turns really well off throttle, even in the mid-corner, but as soon as you get on the throttle it pushes wide. So, you just have to delay that throttle application as long as you can.

“The engine feels strong, the brakes feel good. What’s holding it back is trying to get on the throttle and turn.”

So the Focus has returned to the top of the hot hatch track testing pile for the first time since it was at Bryant Park in 2017 and Norwell in 2016.

Clearly, the LE updates have accentuated the positives of its all-wheel drive system, as does the unique layout of this track.

So is the Ford Focus RS LE the king of the hot hatches? At Bryant Park, no doubt. As for on-road, where most of us drive, that’s another story…

Footnote: Volkswagen was invited to supply vehicles for this comparison, but declined the offer.