Ford Focus RS v Honda Civic Type R v Volkswagen Golf GTI 2017 Comparison

With so many great pocket rockets arriving in Australia there’s never been a better time to hit the track.

The latest star to turn is the Honda Civic Type R, the 228kW 2.0-litre front-driver that’s been met with acclaim over the course of one of the longest model roll-outs in history.

But it’s here now and ready to rock!

Its logical opponent is the Ford Focus RS, the current King of the category with its GKN Twinster all-wheel drive system and powerful 257kW 2.3-litre four-cylinder petrol-turbo engine. This is one of our favourite performance cars – and a leading player at Australia’s Best Driver’s Car earlier this year.

And just to stir up the pot we’ve added the limited edition Golf GTI Performance Edition 1  to the mix. In power terms it’s the underdog with 180kW, but no hot hatch has more badge credibility.

Hot time at Winton
Our test venue is Winton Motor Raceway in north-eastern Victoria. Looking at a map, the 3.0km course is pretty one-dimensional. But it has some enticing technical attributes nonetheless – heck it’s a racetrack, so that’s a big tick straight away.

There’s a tight set of esses, a bunch of 90-degree left and right turns; some are positive camber, some negative and some are just flat. There’s a sweet third gear sweeper with a fast right-flick on exit, a variety of kerbs to bounce over and three consecutive hairpins that are really going to test out our field – especially the ability of the two front-drivers to put their power down.

Our Bathurst-winning track tester Luke ‘11-10ths’ Youlden has been called in to extract the ultimate performance and lap times from our three contestants. Yours truly will be providing the average human perspective.

Hot sun, hotter hatches
We’re baking out here on the flatlands north of Benalla, the sun is cooking up toward the 30-degree mark and there’s not a cloud in the sky. So, photo and video preliminaries complete, Luke is out in the Golf as quickly as possible to see what can be achieved.

The process is the same for each car; a warm-up, a couple of fliers and then a cool-down lap. Driving aids are switched off and driving modes wound up to their most extreme. All three cars tune steering, throttle response and dampers, while the Golf also has a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission that can be operated in auto or manual mode. The other two are six-speed manuals.

Tyre pressures are placard. The Golf is on 19-inch Pirelli P Zeros, the Focus is using optional – and sensational – track-biased 19-inch Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2s and forged alloys, while the Civic is shod with specially developed 20-inch Continentals. All times are GPS recorded.

From pitlane we can hear the distinctive throaty burble of the Golf’s 2.0-litre turbo-petrol four-cylinder, accompanied by the howl of tortured Italian rubber.

Luke’s flier is a 1:43.20

“Just an overall lack of grip leading to too much understeer and exit wheelspin as well, which costs time,” he reports.

He’s also having trouble with the dual-clutch transmission.

“It gets caught in-between gears at different places. Then you put it in manual mode and it doesn’t want to change gear when you want it to. It’s still got a mind of its own a little bit in manual mode,” he added.

So maybe not best-suited to the harsh racetrack environment, but Luke can still see the PE1’s all-round goodness shining through.

“It would be the car I would drive back to Melbourne,” he says consolingly.

On to the Civic. It’s so outlandishly styled it’s setting itself up for derision if it can’t perform. It can.

Luke sets an astonishing 1:39.22 lap.

“It’s very surprising, it’s just got grip, it’s really solid in the back and it doesn’t feel as much like a front-wheel drive car (as the Golf). It turns really well,” he states.

“The engine is strong, it feels sharp. It feels safe, it feels rock solid, it sits flat, it’s not nervous and it’s not real understeery. It just sits there.”

It’s rare to see Luke this impressed by a road car, but the Type R has clearly won him over.

Focus on speed
Surely it can’t top the mighty Focus? Just to clarify, this is not the recently launched Limited Edition with the Quaife slippery diff up-front, but the ‘normal’ RS that smashed the Mercedes-AMG A45 and Audi RS 3 in Luke’s hands at Norwell last year.

This time Luke’s hands let him down, or at least his left-hand as he miss-shifts on his first hot run. The time is a 1:39.34.

We’re all a bit gobsmacked, the King’s crown is slipping. Luke wants another run because of the miss-shift. There’s some debate about the pros and cons but he gets the green light. Hell, he would have gone and done it anyway...

Luke lives up to his nickname, absolutely wringing the Ford’s neck. It sounds in pain, reedy exhaust, yowling rubber. This time he nails everything. He can’t go faster and the RS can’t go fast enough. The time is a 1:39.23.

The Civic has come out on top by 0:00.01. That’s one one-hundredth of a second! But from behind the wheel Luke sees a bigger gap.

“I actually prefer the Civic,” he says.

“This thing (RS) is edgier, it feels heavier, it feels like it dumps its weight on the front that’s why it gets understeer.

“The Civic doesn’t feel like it does that, it sits a lot flatter and doesn’t quite move its weight around as much to the corners of the car. It’s just so much more planted,” he adds.

“The Focus is also a little in-between in a couple of places in the gearing; I’m in second when it’s borderline I should be in third through the slow corners. The Civic is better geared for round here.”

My turn
Gawd... I drive the Golf first and it’s as Luke describes. It’s nice but it’s not a real track-car. It loses front-end grip early despite the mechanical locker, its gearbox will change and then it won’t. I have to wait to crack the throttle out of corners, especially when I’m too enthusiastic on the way in. The engine is civilised rather than angry.

The other two are a different proposition. Angry barely covers it. Fierce, fast and riveting. And after a three-lap run in each I honestly can’t separate them.

The RS has great turn-in and mid-corner grip thanks to its all-wheel drive system and fantastic tyres. It steers precisely and feels like it can be placed anywhere on the road.

And it just jets out of corners. The complex of three hairpins (nicknamed The Cleavage) are dealt with in a series of point and squirt drag races. The most annoying thing? The height of the hardshell Recaro seat that just makes me feel like I am riding on rather than in the car.

I can snuggle deep into the Type R and it feels astonishingly planted for a front-wheel drive. There’s only a few wiggles out of the rear-end as corner entry speeds raise. There’s some tyre in that, some helical diff and just great balance.

Lapping it up
Enlightenment finally comes when I chase Luke for a few laps, the two of us swapping between the RS and the Type R lap-by-lap. He goes fast enough to display each car’s talents, dragging me along so that I can hang in there, watch and feel.

Everything he says is true, the Focus is falling onto its outside tyre more, it’s pushing more and relying more on its Michelins to propel forward. It steers more lightly and with less definition than the Honda. It’s a harder fight to get it down to the apex, it fidgets more and doesn’t feel as planted.

That’s right, you read that correctly. The brilliant all-wheel drive Focus RS does not feel as planted as the front-wheel drive Civic Type R.

Through 'The Cleavage' it is extraordinary. As hard and as quickly as you tramp the throttle, the engine lights up and drives the car forward without any wheelspin or axle tramp.

This Type R feels more all-wheel drive than plenty of all-wheel drives! Luke retires to the pits in the RS but I sneak a couple more laps because the Honda has got its hooks into me. It’s just urging me to go faster.

I brake too early for the esses – damn these Brembos are awesome! Ride the kerbs in and out and then slide up to the left-hand edge past the old start-finish line. Then it’s later on the brakes and earlier on the gas in second in to the downhill right; gas it and then into the next right, the front-end biting and telling me to go for it.

Now angle back to the right along the short straight to the sweeper… third, snatch fourth, back to third, drum across the saw-tooth kerb on the inside, drift right out wide letting the car arc toward the exit; now flick right – damn the rear is clamped and stable there – and angle for the left hand-side flat on the throttle as early as possible. Now hard-hard late-late brake and silly-late turn-in for the first hairpin.

Made the apex! Hammer the throttle. No beg pardons. God that’s unbelievable traction, these Contis are up there with the Michelins. And again in hairpin two and hairpin three. I could have gone deeper and harder, asked more of the front and the rear.

Down the back straight; third, fourth, the tacho needles is making a bee-line for the redline. It feels faster than the RS in a straight-line. Now brake. Bugger! Too early again. Third, gas, fourth, brake, third, right, gas and now fourth … Esses coming, remember brake deeper this time!

I could have been out there for days, just immersed in the sheer ecstasy of going pointlessly, joyously fast in a car that is simply brilliant at the task. Could there be any affordable road cars in the world today that stand up better on a race track than this one? It is $50,990 well spent.

Say R!
Luke helps me analyse what’s going on. Winton’s relatively fresh bitumen is helping the front-driver overcome potential traction issues and the Honda’s gearing is the best of the three for this layout.

The shift is great too – I hadn’t even thought about while I was in the car! And the Type R’s 130kg weight advantage no doubt plays its role.

“It feels like how it looks,” Luke says simply.

Yep, the Type R looks great, goes great and feels great on the racetrack. That it feels better and is fractionally faster than the Ford Focus RS is an incredible testament to the level of Honda’s achievement.

No need to bask in reflected glory here. The Type R is glorious in its own rite.

2017 Ford Focus RS pricing and specifications:
Price: $50,990 (plus on-road costs)
Engine: 2.3-litre four-cylinder turbo-petrol
Output: 257kW/440Nm (470Nm on overboost)
Transmission: Six-speed manual
Fuel: 8.1L/100km (ADR Combined)
CO2: 190g/km (ADR Combined)
Safety: Unrated

2017 Honda Civic Type R pricing and specifications:
Price: $50,990 (plus on-road costs)
Engine: 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo-petrol
Output: 228kW/400Nm
Transmission: Six-speed manual
Fuel economy: 8.8L/100km (ADR Combined)
CO2: 200g/km (ADR Combined)
Safety: Unrated

2017 Volkswagen Golf GTI Performance Edition 1 pricing and specifications:
Price: $47,990 (plus on-road costs)
Engine: 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo-petrol
Output: 180kW/370Nm
Transmission: Seven-speed dual-clutch
Fuel: 6.5L/100km (ADR Combined)
CO2: 150g/km (ADR Combined)
Safety: Five-star ANCAP