Lightning Lap 2016: Ford Focus RS
Class: LL2
Lap time: 3:03.9
Base price: $38,765
As-tested price: $42,245
350 hp • 3451 lb • 9.9 lb/hp
Tires: Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2, 235/35ZR-19 (91Y)
One-point-three seconds. That’s the delta between the $42,245 Ford Focus RS and the $42,975 Mustang GT we ran here last year. That it falls in favor of the Focus has something to do with the Mustang’s 371 additional pounds—a penalty not sufficiently offset by the latter’s 85 additional horsepower.
Unlike the Mustang, the RS’s development roots and spiritual successors lie in Europe and Japan, respectively. Yet there’s something distinctly American about the state of mind required to go quickly in the RS. The most effective driving style, the one that solves most problems, in fact, is gratuitous use of the throttle. Put your foot in it. Steer. Let the electronics sort out the rest. What could be more American than that?
And yet, to drive the RS properly is to disregard the familiar. Big initial steering inputs are rewarded with aggressive rotation. Once turned, its natural corner stance is often mildly tail-out. There are limits, of course. Even the Focus’s wildly lenient stability control can’t thwart the icy, indifferent hand of physics once speed and the momentum that accompanies it become too high. The RS’s torque-biasing all-wheel-drive system is a merciless merchant of sideways speed. But keep the slides sensible and the laps are faster than they would be with customarily clean driving.
The RS rewrites the rules about traditional track driving. It rewards flamboyance behind the wheel. And it flashes its bare-assed Blue Oval to convention. Ironically, it’s more Wild West than the Ford named after a feral horse. Its greatness lies not in the last few tenths of a second shaved from a quick lap, but in the art of managing the perfect powerslide.
