Some of you have expressed doubt that the Ford Focus RS can have 324lb ft of torque and be driven by its front wheels, yet suffer from no torque steer at all.
Earlier this week I spent two days in France with the RS and can report that, actually, you're right. It does torque steer.
A bit.
It's at its most prevalent near straight-ahead. Accelerate onto a motorway through third gear, and across cambers the RS will take nibbles at the steering wheel.
Which is about as surprising as finding it gets dark at night. The surprise is how little there is. The RS's traction out of tighter bends really is astonishing too.
With a lot of lock, out of a second-gear uphill corner it'll rocket away with no front-wheel slip at all and precious little torque effect on the steering.
There's less self centring than you might expect here – the first-gen Focus RS, which had a limited-slip diff that acted in the same fashion, would pull itself into a corner on the throttle.
The idea behind the RevoKnuckle suspension is simple when you see it – it reduces the distance between the steering axis (a line about which the wheel pivots) and the wheel's centre-line (where torque is applied to the road). It has the effect of shortening a lever, or pushing a door near the hinge rather than near the handle.
Renault has done something similar, it says, with the RenaultSport Megane. I'll be spending my evening delving into the intricacies of both so I can really understand them, before writing about the cars over the weekend.
That's why I was in France in the first place; to group test the RS against an R26 R and a Mitsubishi Evo X. But I suspect I am contractually obliged not to tell you the result until the story appears in the rag a week on Wednesday. Sorry.
Suffice to say it's no foregone conclusion. Yesterday we took the same R26R to MIRA and lapped our road test circuits, obtaining comparative times in advance of a full Focus RS road test.
Fast? We looked at the data and the R26 R loses out to an Aston Martin DBS only under power.
Ford hasn't quoted a Nurburgring lap time for the Focus RS yet, but reckons it'll be able to beat the Renault's 8min 17sec when good weather permits an attempt.
It might be right: the RS feels wickedly fast in a straight line and the Nurburgring rewards power.
But don't, in any contest, underestimate the car with the plastic windows.
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