Ford Focus RS 2016 Preview Drive Review

Quick Spin
Ford Focus RS

The wait is almost over. Ford has been relentlessly hyping the Focus RS since the announcement it was planning a 258kW all-wheel driven version of its family hatchback last year, and the build-up has included a viral video series with more episodes than most soap operas… Including inevitable appearances by company-sponsored drift king Ken Block.

Expectation is suitably ramped, so does the RS really stand a chance in its piranha-filled part of the market? Because there's no shortage of very talented opposition, including the Volkswagen Golf R, Audi RS3, Mercedes A45 AMG and Subaru WRX STI.

We can't deliver the full verdict yet – that will have to wait until our full first drive next week. But we can certainly vouch for the fact the RS impressed strongly on first acquaintance.

Our sneak peek was in a prototype version and took place at Ford's Lommel test track in Belgium, pretty much the most boring corner of Europe's most boring country and therefore the ideal place to situate a top-secret validation facility.

The camo-clad prototypes that normally circulate the proving ground's 50 kilometers of varied tracks had been banished for the day, giving us practically free reign of a course that includes both a high-speed banked oval and a dynamic track modelled on the favourite real-world corners of senior Ford chassis engineers.

My first instinct is, of course, to make the most of this brief driving opportunity by giving the RS the sort of caning normally reserved for rented donkeys. But with a senior Ford engineer sitting shotgun, and evidence of how slippery the track is in the rainy conditions demonstrated by the sight another journo-driven RS prototype buried in a gravel trap, I start off at a more cautious pace.

Initial impressions are certainly not much more than whelming. Drive the RS at what represents a typical real world pace and it feels like a firmer and laggier version of the Focus ST.

The steering is lower geared and less frenetic, Ford has ditched the ST's controversial variable ratio rack in the RS, and – even off-boost – it's clear the 2.3-litre Ecoboost engine has deeper lungs than the ST's 2.0-litre unit. But the RS isn't the sort of white-knuckle express you might expect given its stated output and the promise of its active four-wheel drive system.

Start to work it harder and it gets better. The RS shares its basic engine with the Mustang Ecoboost, although with the block turned transverse and given various modifications to deal with higher boost pressures from a more powerful twin-scroll turbocharger. It suffers from none of the Mustang's top end tightness, and although it there's a noticeable pause lower down the rev band as the turbo spools up, it pulls with undiminishing zeal all the way to the 6800rpm limiter.

And there's some appropriately angry noises as it does so! In an era when manufacturers do all they can to hide forced induction it's refreshing to find a car that seems so proud to be turbocharged; there's some of the spirit of an early Impreza WRX or Mitsubishi Lancer Evo here.

You need to start pressing hard to bring the clever rear axle into play. As explained in our Ford Focus RS tech piece this uses separate fast-acting Haldex style clutches for each rear wheel, allowing different amounts of torque on both sides of the rear axle. And, on Lommel's longer corners, it starts to do its thing.

Push to the point where the front end of a front-driven hatchback like the ST would be edging wide and a new sensation takes over, you feel effort being directed backwards, cancelling the slip and pushing you back towards your chosen line.

According to the RS's development team its rear wheels are driven fractionally faster than its fronts under hard loadings, creating the same sense of edginess you feel in a powerful rear-driver, but with the reassurance that comes from being both pushed and pulled.

Even on a greasy, slippery corner it's instinctively easy to drive the RS to its lateral limits in this dynamic sweet spot. It's fuss free, but also devastatingly effective.

What happens beyond this zone of extra grip depends largely on which of the switchable driving modes is selected. In the default 'Normal' the RS tries to stay neutral, 'Sport' permits some limited but well contained rear-end slip and 'Track' liberalises everything to the extent of proper power oversteer.

Or you can turn everything off and try to emulate Mr. Block.

Actually, you don't need to deactivate all the safety sentinels to do this, thanks to the much-hyped 'Drift' mode. A feature that, when Ford announced it, pretty much broke the internet. Yet while it's great fun, it does feel like a bit of a gimmick, one made less impressive by just how impressive the rest of the car is.

With drift mode selected all you need to do is apply steering lock and throttle at the same time. The car accelerates into its hooked-up stance, then there's half a second or so of understeer, acting as a sort of dynamic liability waiver. Indicate consent by keeping the throttle on and then system diverts torque to the outside rear wheel, powering the back of the car into stomach-lurching oversteer and then trying to hold it there for as long as you keep the gas on.

The stability control stays active. In fact, you can feel it delivering brake inputs to the front through the wheel. Suspension geometry gives strong caster effect, keeping the front wheels tracking the car's course well enough that you can pretty much take your hands off the wheel, with the system trying to keep the car at the neutral steering point, drifting with no opposite lock applied.

It's a neat trick, and one that you'll grow bored of long before the car does, but it's not really much more sophisticated than hauling on the handbrake at speed in a front-driver.

At the Belgian test track it on which was largely developed, the new Focus RS is brilliant.

It lacks much of the crude charm of its overpowered front-driven predecessors, but even on first acquaintance it's clear that it's a much better engineered and more polished car.

It will be fascinating to see how it deals with its posher and more expensive rivals in a fair fight; very well we suspect.