Ford Focus RS 2016 first drive

The only aspect that might get tiresome for anyone doing big miles in an RS is the tightly sprung, short-travel vertical body movement, which even in the softer setting can make the car bob about a lot over rippled road surfaces. In reality, even this is pretty easy to ignore, and is never so bad as to corrupt the handling. 

The car’s bucket seats force you into a slightly perched drivingposition that wants notably for downward adjustment, but the same has been true of every fast Focus we can remember.

Just like in the ST, you get additional boost and temperature gauges set high on the roll-top fascia and RS-branded seats, while the instruments, leather steering wheel, gearlever gaiter and manual handbrake are all either stitched or highlighted in characteristic Ford RSblue, which looks great. The additional function buttons to note are the drive mode selector adjacent to the gear lever and the damper setting toggle button that replaces the lane-keeping assist button on the left-hand column stalk. Expect to be fiddling with both a lot.

The Ford Mustang-sourced 2.3-litre turbo engine sounds angrier and more raspy than the Focus ST’s tuneful 2.0-litre. It's not quite as characterful, perhaps, as Audi ’s five-cylinder RS3, but better than Mercedes-AMG’s A45. It responds to the accelerator pedal keenly in spite of the high specific output at which it’s operating and revs forcefully but progressively though the middle of the rev range, before climbing beyond 6000rpm quite freely.

It strikes you as a surprisingly civil and well-balanced engine – hard-hitting, too, of course – and is all the more involving to interact with as a result of Ford’s decision to stick with a six-speed manual gearbox where others fit paddleshift dual-clutch automatics. The gearlever is short and weighty, but just slick and positive enough that you don’t feel like you’re forcing it through the gate, plus the pedals are well located for heel-and-toe changes.

So, knowing you’re in the right gear as you approach a corner because you’ve actually engaged it first-hand, you tip the RS in - and find that it wastes no time or energy at all in body roll or directional laziness, pivoting keenly for the apex and generating big, instant amounts of lateral grip. The car’s heavy steering is just tame enough to dodge any semblance of nervousness, the body checked and settled on its outside contact patches well before you’ve passed the apex at which you were vaguely aiming. No need to aim so vaguely next time, or be so conservative with your entry speed.

Now comes the RS’s party piece – which can be quietly surprising or downright amazing, depending on which driving mode you’ve dialled up. In Normal and Sport modes the car just goes beautifully neutral as you unwind the heavy steering and squeeze the accelerator, already feeling more directionally poised than the four-wheel-drive hot hatch norm and without allowing the rear axle to run riot, or imposing on you for a significant steering correction.

Track mode keeps the tyre tracks in line, with an understandable eye on high-speed stability. But Drift mode allows the car’s attitude to gracefully and gradually build with power, and the RS to dance through the latter part of the bend with a few degrees of opposite lock applied. It still leaves room for the car’s ingenious clutch-based rear axle power split to shuffle drive away from the outside rear wheel, and to pull the car straight again when ‘a few' degrees of oversteer becomes ‘many’. But the way it does all that is incredibly benign and utterly brilliant, and speaks of both the technical superiority of the car compared with its peers and the remarkable effort and expertise of the people behind it.