Best Hot Hatch 2022: Safety

Hot hatches provide a safe hand guiding the driver and are always ready to protect, but some go the extra mile…

There’s a feeling of reassurance that comes with driving an accomplished performance car, thanks to an unswerving commitment of the engineers behind it who aim to ensure it’s a rewarding experience. That brings with it high levels of active safety, from structural integrity and a chassis that prioritises roadholding and feedback to the driver to advanced traction and stability control systems that keep everything in check. Today’s hot hatches should excel in this area, as well as provide the latest driver assist features used in everyday scenarios and, should a crash occur, high levels of protection to keep all occupants safe. How do the top six contenders for carsales’ Best Hot Hatch 2022 fare in this all-important area? Let’s find out…

There’s no doubt that safety is one of the biggest areas of improvement in the automotive industry over the past 20 years, with new vehicles today much more capable of avoiding a crash occurring in the first place as well as protecting occupants when a collision becomes unavoidable.

All six contenders for carsales’ Best Hot Hatch 2022 have the basics covered in this department, however there are a variety of elements that separate them.

And the first of these are ANCAP safety ratings.

The Australasian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP) is the major independent vehicle safety body in Australia, and its standards and requirements have evolved in recent years to better reflect industry advancements and higher consumer expectations.

Assessment criteria changes in 2017 and again in 2020 mean that the ANCAP safety rating ‘date stamps’ are now as important as the actual star rating itself.

A maximum five-star rating from 2015 is not the same as one given in 2022. And of the six hot hatches on test, only half have an ANCAP rating at all.

The Ford Focus ST X and Volkswagen Golf GTI both have five-star ANCAP ratings based on crash testing carried out in 2019, while the Volkswagen Polo GTI is the freshest five-star-rated car here with a 2022 date stamp.

That places the Polo GTI as the only model ranked at the highest level under ANCAP’s current testing regime.

At the other end of the scale, the Ford Fiesta ST does not have an ANCAP rating at all – although we note that it did receive five stars under European NCAP testing in 2017 – while the Hyundai i20 N and i30 N similarly do not carry an independent crash test rating.

The broader Hyundai i30 range does have a five-star rating dating back to 2017, but it specifically excludes the i30 N model we have here. There’s no current ANCAP assessment for mainstream i20 models.

In terms of safety equipment, all these hot hatches have front, front-side and side curtain airbags fitted standard.

The Hyundai i30 N adds a driver’s knee airbag and the Volkswagen Polo GTI a centre front airbag to make a total of seven airbags each, while the Volkswagen Golf GTI adds side airbags for rear seat occupants, for a total of eight in the car. (From late November production, an MY23 update will also add a centre front airbag to the Golf GTI, among other safety updates.)

Key active safety features are mostly well covered by all the hot hatches in this test.

All are fitted standard with autonomous emergency braking (AEB), forward collision warning (FCW), lane keeping assist (LKA), lane departure warning (LDW), electronic stability control (ESC), electronic brake assist (EBA), anti-lock braking system (ABS), tyre pressure alert/monitoring, a reversing camera and rear parking sensors.

But that’s where the similarities end.

Dig into the detail of the advanced driver assist systems on board and we find that high-speed front AEB is not included on either the Hyundai i20 N or the bigger Hyundai i30 N Premium, while rear cross traffic alert and low-speed rear AEB is only packaged in the i30 N and the two Volkswagens – the Polo GTI and Golf GTI.

The Hyundai i20 N has a rear cross traffic alert function (but no rear AEB), while the two Ford hot hatches on test – the Ford Fiesta ST and Focus ST X – have neither.

Helping the cause of the two Hyundai models is the standard fitment of lane following assist, which isn’t found among our other contenders.

Blind spot monitoring is standard in all but the Fiesta ST, while blind spot collision avoidance is only provided in the Focus ST X (from MY22), the i30 N and the two Volkswagen GTI twins.

Secondary collision mitigation, where the brakes are automatically applied after a crash so the vehicle doesn’t continue on to another collision, is standard fare for all but the Fiesta ST and the i30 N.

Driver fatigue monitoring is standard in all but the Focus, while speed sign recognition is fitted in all but the two Volkswagen GTI models.

Only the Fiesta misses out on front parking sensors.

LED headlights (both high and low beam) are standard across the board, but the Fiesta and Polo go a step further in using matrix control, which alters the headlight beam so it does not dazzle oncoming traffic.

Ford Fiesta ST
ANCAP safety rating (year): Not rated
AEB: Yes
Airbags/driver knee/centre front: 6/No/No
Blind spot monitoring: No
Forward collision warning: Yes
Rear/360-degree camera: Yes/No
Lane departure warning: Yes
Lane keep assist: Yes
Rear cross traffic alert: No
Parking sensors front/rear: No/Yes

Ford Focus ST X
ANCAP safety rating (year): Five-star (2019)
AEB: Yes
Airbags/driver knee/centre front: 6/No/No
Blind spot monitoring: Yes
Forward collision warning: Yes
Rear/360-degree camera: Yes/No
Lane departure warning: Yes
Lane keep assist: Yes
Rear cross traffic alert: No
Parking sensors front/rear: Yes/Yes

Hyundai i20 N
ANCAP safety rating (year): Not rated
AEB: Yes
Airbags/driver knee/centre front: 6/No/No
Blind spot monitoring: Yes
Forward collision warning: Yes
Rear/360-degree camera: Yes/No
Lane departure warning: Yes
Lane keep assist: Yes
Rear cross traffic alert: Yes
Parking sensors front/rear: Yes/Yes

Hyundai i30 N Premium DCT
ANCAP safety rating (year): Not rated
AEB: Yes
Airbags/driver knee/centre front: 7/Yes/No
Blind spot monitoring: Yes
Forward collision warning: Yes
Rear/360-degree camera: Yes/No
Lane departure warning: Yes
Lane keep assist: Yes
Rear cross traffic alert: Yes
Parking sensors front/rear: Yes/Yes

Volkswagen Polo GTI
ANCAP safety rating (year): Five-star (2022)
AEB: Yes
Airbags/driver knee/centre front: 7/No/Yes
Blind spot monitoring: Yes
Forward collision warning: Yes
Rear/360-degree camera: Yes/No
Lane departure warning: Yes
Lane keep assist: Yes
Rear cross traffic alert: Yes
Parking sensors front/rear: Yes/Yes

Volkswagen Golf GTI
ANCAP safety rating (year): Five-star (2019)
AEB: Yes
Airbags/driver knee/centre front: 8/No/No
Blind spot monitoring: Yes
Forward collision warning: Yes
Rear/360-degree camera: Yes/No
Lane departure warning: Yes
Lane keep assist: Yes
Rear cross traffic alert: Yes
Parking sensors front/rear: Yes/Yes