Renault Sport Clio RS16

Concept provides a taste of what could be another Renault Sport hot hatch great – if it makes production.

- Dan Prosser

DRIVING A PURPOSE built competition car on circuit is an enlightening experience.Whereasmost road cars feel all at sea on track – not enough grip, far too understeery in their balance, body control much too sloppy – racing cars are altogether more capable on circuit. Of course they are. That’s what they’re built for. To drive a competition car on track really is to have your eyes opened, though, and for one simple reason: in a road car you concentrate on the car, but in a racing car you concentrate on the circuit.

It’s all to do with dynamic ability. Road cars, even sporty ones, tend not to have the grip, control and precision to really perform on circuit, where cornering forces are so much higher than on the road, so you have to make allowances for them. You eventually settle into a rhythm of managing the front-end push as you gently sail well wide of yet another apex before crawling back into the pits because your brakes are cooked. It’s frustrating and you never really tune into the track itself.

In a racing car, though, it’s a very different story. They’re capable enough on circuit that you really can turn your mind to the track and think about tackling it in minute detail. Running over that raised section of kerb but missing the serrated edge, for instance, or taking a wider line around the first bend to set yourself up for the following one. Eventually you stop thinking about the car altogether –what sort of engine it has, where it sends its power, even which side of it you’re sitting on – and you focus entirely on the track. Soon enough, it feels as though the circuit is simply rushing underneath you like in a computer game.