► CAR’s epic hot hatch of the year tes
► 2025’s fast, small cars battle it ou
► Which is the ultimate small performance car?
How can we identify 2025’s best hot hatch? By spending three days in 10 cars on some of northern England’s most glorious roads… and a race track.
Welcome to CAR’s epic hot hatch of the year battle.
Fun factory: the cars and specs
Mini electric JCW
There’s never been a dud Mini hot hatch yet…
Price £38,420
Powertrain 49kWh battery, e-motor, front-wheel drive
Performance 255bhp, 258lb ft, 5.9sec 0-62mph, 124mph
Weight 1680kg
Efficiency 4.0 miles per kWh (official), 3.0 miles per kWh (tested), 226-mile range (official), 147-mile range (tested), 0g/km CO2
Read our Mini Electric JCW review
Alpine A290 GTS
The R5’s appeal but with more power
Price £37,500
Powertrain 52kWh battery, e-motor, front-wheel drive
Performance 215bhp, 221lb ft, 6.4sec 0-62mph, 106mph
Weight 1483kg
Efficiency 3.7 miles per kWh (official), 2.8 miles per kWh (tested), 224-mile range (official), 145-mile range (tested), 0g/km CO2
Read our Alpine A290 review
Abarth 600e Scorpionissima
600e is the most powerful Abarth ever
Price £39,875
Powertrain 51kWh battery, e-motor, front-wheel drive
Performance 277bhp, 254lb ft, 5.9sec 0-62mph, 124mph
Weight 1640kg
Efficiency 3.3 miles per kWh (official), 2.7 miles per kWh (tested), 207-mile range (official), 137-mile range (tested), 0g/km CO2
Read our Abarth 600e review
Alfa Romeo Junior Veloce
Risky brand move but slippy diff boosts it
Price £42,295
Powertrain 51kWh battery, e-motor, front-wheel drive
Performance 277bhp, 254lb ft, 6.0sec 0-62mph, 124mph
Weight 1560kg
Efficiency 3.3 miles per kWh (official), 2.7 miles per kWh (tested), 207-mile range (official), 137-mile range (tested), 0g/km CO2
Read our Alfa Romeo Junior Veloce review
Honda Civic Type R
The legend, the logo, and established as our benchmark hot hatch, the latest Civic Type R is as sharp as ever – but it’s now over £50k…
Price £51,905
Powertrain 1996cc turbocharged four-cylinder, six-speed manual, front-wheel drive
Performance 326bhp @ 6500rpm, 310lb ft @ 2500rpm, 5.4sec 0-62mph, 171mph
Weight 1429kg
Efficiency 34mpg (official), 186g/km CO2
Read our Honda Civic Type R review
Audi RS3 Sportback Carbon Vorsprung
Facelifted and likely to be the last time we’ll see the five-cylinder engine, ever – two things that guarantee its spot on this test
Price £70,925
Powertrain 2480cc turbocharged five-cylinder, seven-speed dual-clutch automatic, all-wheel drive
Performance 395bhp @ 5600rpm, 369lb ft @ 2250rpm, 3.8sec 0-62mph, 174mph
Weight 1565kg
Efficiency 30.1mpg (official), 213g/km CO2
Read our Audi RS3 review
Hyundai Ioniq 5 N
Formidably accomplished 5 N has made sceptics realise that, if the engineers get involved, EVs can be interesting and a lot of fun
Price £65,010
Powertrain 84kWh battery, twin e-motors, all-wheel drive
Performance 641bhp, 546lb ft, 3.4sec 0-62mph, 161mph
Weight 2235kg
Efficiency 2.93 miles per kWh (official), 278-mile range (official), 0g/km CO2
Read our Hyundai Ioniq 5 N review
Mini John Cooper Works
The JCW badge is splurged across all sorts of Minis these days, but this one has the closest lineage to the original
Price £35,800
Powertrain 1998cc turbocharged four-cylinder, seven-speed dual-clutch automatic, front-wheel drive
Performance 226bhp @ 5000rpm, 280lb ft @ 1500rpm, 6.1sec 0-62mph, 155mph
Weight 1330kg
Efficiency 41.5mpg (official), 154g/km CO2
Read our Mini JCW review
Toyota GR Yaris
The perfect recipe? Small, manual gearbox, turbo power – it’s hard to argue with the fundamentals of Toyota’s homologation special
Price £44,250
Powertrain 1618cc turbocharged three-cylinder, six-speed manual, all-wheel drive
Performance 276bhp @ 6500rpm, 288lb ft @ 3250rpm, 5.2sec 0-62mph, 143mph
Weight 1280kg
Efficiency 32.1-32.5mpg (official), 197g/km CO2
Read our GR Yaris review
Volkswagen Golf GTI Clubsport
Mk8.5 GTI is a welcome return to form for the famous three letters, blending the Golf’s usability with a load more aggression and attitude
Price £42,155
Powertrain 1984cc turbocharged four-cylinder, seven-speed dual-clutch automatic, front-wheel drive
Performance 296bhp @ 5300rpm, 295lb ft @ 2000rpm, 5.6sec 0-62mph, 155mph
Weight 1459kg (DIN)
Efficiency 37.4mpg (official), 171g/km CO2
Read our Golf GTI Clubsport review
Electric avenue: Alpine A290 vs Alfa Junior Veloce vs Abarth 600e vs Mini Electric JCW
In just a few years we’ve gone from worrying that electric cars would be the death of driving to an e-powered pursuit of hot-hatch glory. These four cars are bang up to date in their hardware and software, but also highlight a developing response to a wider EV issue. Faced with a blizzard of new and tech-forward cars, European marques are turning to one thing they have in abundance that start-up rivals lack: heritage.
These four aren’t the only EVs in this test, but we’ve grouped them together because they’re clearly trying to do the same thing: leveraging an icon tied to past success.
The electric John Cooper Works from Mini represents not only the man but also the Works tuning schtick Mini has leaned on for two decades now. JCWs are typically raucous, so won’t e-power seem oddly quiet? For the equally strident brand named after Carlo Abarth, can the 600e compact SUV succeed where the smaller 500e stuttered?
In redeploying two storied badges, is it a travesty that Alfa has also taken the compact SUV route? And coming after the purity and lightness of the A110, are the Renault 5-based Alpine A290’s cartoonish details and big-wheeled stance – it stands 15mm taller than the Veloce – a fitting celebration of Jean Rédélé’s legacy?
We’re not dinosaurs. In fact we’re very open minded about the prospects of these cars doing well in this test, having had plenty of good experiences with driver-focused EVs, but this positive approach is tinged with a nervous apprehension that they’ll struggle to meet the expectations that come from labelling any car a hot hatch.
‘That has got to be one of the worst cars I’ve ever driven.’ Ben Barry’s scathing initial response to the Abarth gets us off to a challenging start, bringing with it visions of looming diplodocus and circling pterodactyls. This Acid Green 277bhp limited-edition Scorpionissima is the most powerful Abarth road car ever – can it really be as bad as that? Ben takes particular umbrage with the steering telling him ‘nothing’, the inconsistent brake feel (thanks, regen) and the ‘confused’, overly tough ride.
The platform-sharing Alfa matches the Abarth for output and both feature stiffer suspension, with a 25mm ride-height reduction versus their lesser siblings. The outcome is different, as the marginally slower Junior is appreciably more pliant, immediately feeling easier to live with. But it too lacks steering feel, properly poised body control and braking consistency.
A curious division between Alcon (Abarth) and Brembo (Alfa) has delivered very similar 380mm front brakes that both manage to rob you of confidence in the default driving setting. Meanwhile the torsion-beam rear axle clearly isn’t helping these cars keep their contact patches together – the confusion Ben speaks of is the disjointed reaction you get from each corner whenever the surface starts to ripple.
As instant turn-offs go, however, no car in this entire test can match the electric JCW, which has ride quality only an industrial stamping machine could love. It is incredibly firm. And this is the more modern of the two Mini platforms present? ‘The Minis are the only cars that made me physically wince,’ says Piers Ward.
The upside is a low-slung incisiveness that a taller car will always struggle to deliver. The Mini is by far the most ground-hugging of the electric contenders – including the Hyundai you’ll meet in the next story along, which overshadows these lesser e-hatches in more ways than one – and Ben is cautiously positive about the Mini’s steering. Shame the steering wheel is a horribly fat German-sausage affair. And at 1680kg, the eJCW is the heaviest of this foursome.
Still, it’s quick enough, with 0-62mph in 5.9sec, and an official range of 226 miles. That’s the best of this bunch. In all four cases, once you put the hammer down the efficiency drops substantially. That none can charge faster than 100kW puts another dent in their playful partner status. We’re all over range anxiety, right? Not so much when you’re in the middle of the Yorkshire Dales and even Zap-Map is shrugging.
But there’s a more fundamental problem with electric power in hot-hatch land: single-speed transmissions and that void where the under-bonnet personality ought to be mean they simply don’t give you enough interaction. There’s not a single regen paddle between these four rivals, nor the lovingly coded eight-speed gearbox simulator that’s such a joy in the 5 N. The Italian duo in particular are far too one dimensional, unless you’re happy turning B mode on and off via centre-console switchgear.
The Mini does have a Boost function, activated by a paddle on what would usually be the downshift side. All this does is make the full 255bhp available for 10 seconds if you flatten the accelerator; it’s otherwise limited to 228bhp. You’ll be more distracted by the garish countdown timer that covers the head-up display AND the circular infotainment screen (hiding the nav directions in the process) than blown away by sudden extra urgency. Uh-oh… is that a T-Rex?
Alpine has tried harder. While the A290’s steering wheel is another over-stuffed, under-round ugly sucker to cling to, it also sports a couple of less conventional protrusions. The rotary dial that controls three levels of regen is more pretend-racing-driver theatre than ergonomic success, but the slightly cheap-feeling red lever marked OV has innovative merit.
Falling under your right thumb, it’s an overtake button. Not a new concept in itself, but Alpine has gone all-in on the key advantage e-power has over combustion and uses it to instantly activate the full performance of the A290’s motor. No preamble, no need to flex your right foot – as long as you’re under power, if you hit this switch the car will give it all until you release it again. Fast & Furious nitrous fantasies come true.
Well, sort of. This top-spec A290 GTS musters only 215bhp, so it’s not going to catapult you into next week. But the immediate and sustained kick is enough to get you giggling and at least adds some cartoonish drama to proceedings. Yes, it’s like having two accelerators, but OV hits differently as you don’t even have to transition through the pedal travel to reach peak output. Click, and the car is sprinting.
Alpine’s streak continues with the suspension, where the multi-link rear does a better job of soaking up bumps without punishing your life choices. It’s still rather jittery, though, and things begin to go awry with the seating position – it feels more akin to the SUVs than the Mini.
Worst of all, the steering feel is awful. It’s especially bad just off centre, with a greasy, sproingy sensation to the initial input at the exact moment you want reassurance. But ⊲ the whole set-up is overly light and devoid of useful feedback. It makes the entire car seem like a swing and a miss. Oh dear.
That’s four electric hot hatches, each with at least one fundamental flaw. How do we pick a winner, let alone consider putting one through to the on-track decider at Croft?
Persevering with the Italian pair, my less exacting take is that Ben Barry is being a touch harsh. Adjust your expectations in line with their elevated centre of gravity, and both can keenly carry cross-county speed. Push harder and the proper mechanical Torsen LSD used by both makes its presence felt in the way they haul themselves through tight and twisting corners. There’s still not much feedback, but there is conviction. I could live with it.
Set the driving mode to most aggressive – Scorpion Track in the Abarth, Dynamic in the Alfa – and this knocks out the regen completely, allowing you to lean exclusively on those friction brakes. The pedals are still oddly soft, and it’s better to press on with B mode also engaged, but you can make very rapid progress. The 600e is the harder and sharper – the Junior is a little too laid-back in this company – so gets the nod if you want a hot crossover and can put up with its annoyances. These include Abarth’s artificial engine noise, which sounds like a busted wheel bearing at higher constant speeds. You’ll disable it.
The Alpine’s steering is such a bummer – though we’re not much taken with the fussy styling either. And while the ride is softer than the Mini’s it’s still pattery and unsettled. These issues reflect the A290’s biggest problem: Renault’s done such an excellent job of the regular 5 that this seems too much like one of those rolled-in-glue, then Halfords, then glitter cars. OV button aside, it’s not elevated enough over the much more crisply executed ordinary car to wow us.
That leaves the Mini. Every single time the other tester gets out, they complain again about the ride. But no one is knocking the steering or the brakes. And then I find myself in hot pursuit of Ben and Piers in the Yaris and Golf on some deserted, sinuous roads, and the whole car snaps into focus. Ignoring the stupid Boost paddle entirely, it has the pace to keep up on the straights and the front end to do the same in the corners. There’s no dead spot, no vagueness, just tenacity, darting deftness and go, go, go – and when you wind it up the thumping suspension fades away.
If you want the most fun from an affordable electric car, the eJCW is the answer. But if you want an actual hot hatch, you’ll still need an actual engine. The Mini is quick, even thrilling, but it isn’t as exciting as the best petrol-powered competition. None of these EVs is going through to the final.
By CJ Hubbard
The heavy hitters: Honda Civic Type R vs Audi RS3 vs Hyundai Ioniq 5 N
They used to film the original All Creatures Great and Small round these parts, which is fitting given the hot hatches we’re testing are so eclectic: the Honda Civic Type R combines a 326bhp 2.0-litre turbo punch with front-wheel drive, the Audi RS3 harnesses a 395bhp turbo five with all-wheel drive, while the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N powers all four wheels with two electric motors; it’s the largest, heaviest and – with 641bhp – most potent here. Yet all slot in the ‘great’ creatures category, with prices over £50k.
Civic first. You drop down into gorgeously comfortable and supportive seats in Type R red, the steering wheel wrapped in grippy alcantara, a bulb of a manual gearshifter in cool metal a hand span away. Small infotainment screen, climate controls you could use while lapping Suzuka… this car was made for driving.
You’re immediately struck by the precision and tactility: the detail of the steering, the viscous weighting of perfectly placed pedals and most definitely the crisp, mechanical shift of that gearlever.
The Honda is not perfect. Despite a limited-slip diff, the Michelin 4S tyres struggle to deploy the 310lb ft of torque effectively – I remember the previous model having a cleaner, more clinical feel, which is odd given the performance has barely changed.
Damping is also way too firm in R+ and Sport modes but at least in Comfort it settles with speed – the entire platform feels of a piece, nose-led more than adjustable, but elastic enough for such a focused machine.
Heading for the Dales, a superbike appears below the hoop of the Civic’s rear wing as the road starts to flick from one high-speed loading to another. Go on then.
At speed the clarity of the Type R’s steering response takes some getting used to. You point it and it simply follows, the usual latency of the front followed by the rear all but dialled out.
Biker drops back then reels me in on the straights, but the Civic feels stronger than 326bhp suggests. There’s some lag, a vacuum-cleaner soundtrack, but also kick to the boost, plus huge speed. The limiting factor is the front end – under more determined power at least – as the road threads narrower and runs up to a windswept hilltop.
Meeting CAR’s CJ Hubbard and Ted Welford – both rugged and windswept in their own way – I swap into the RS3. It’s a very different proposition. Recently updated with new alloys and a revised steering wheel with much needed drive-mode shortcut buttons, its mechanicals are unchanged. That means 2.5 litres, 395bhp and quattro that incorporates a ‘torque splitter’ for a more rear-biased experience on demand.
If anything the Audi feels even more compliant than I remember, easing over a road that bucks and dips through a tricky landscape. Initially the Audi’s steering is excessively light, but at speed the vagueness of over-assistance gives way to fluency and directness. It dials out the noise but still lets you point it exactly where you fancy.
Fast-acting all-wheel drive provides a lovely hooked-up feel – accuracy from the front, drive from the rear, and that supple ride to smother everything in between. The Audi is also surprisingly keen to change direction, with a nice bite at the front and an accommodating yaw when you lift off.
Shame its engine lacks sparkle. With its five-cylinder USP it’s tunefully throaty and far more cultured than the Civic, but there’s lethargy in the lag, and it prefers to haul in the midrange rather than rev out. The dual-clutch gearbox also lacks urgency.
But if you want something easier to live with than the Civic, not to mention a proper all-weather point-to-point hero that’d leave it standing in the wet, well, this is the ticket.
After the Audi, the Hyundai seems to have been dropped into some kind of Honey I Shrunk The Kids remake, dwarfing everything around it.
Initial driving impressions are a little underwhelming. While it often rides perfectly well, the 5 N’s chassis struggles on these tricky roads, as each wheel deflects over bumps that the Audi simply glosses over. The steering also has more of a synthetic, gloopy feel and lacks definition around top-dead centre, though it does pivot into corners really quite decisively.
Naturally, with 641bhp our Korean contender is also insatiably rapid, if in the one-dimensional EV tradition. Salvation comes in the form of the Hyundai’s simulated engine and gearbox. If this sounds like everything analogue car enthusiasts might rail against, the execution is genius, unlocking a layer of interaction usually absent from EVs. The ‘engine’ burbles fruitily like a Subaru flat-four, helping contextualise the speed, while artificial gear ratios launch hard then knock the edge off the acceleration at speed. Imagine upshifting from fourth to fifth gear in a fast corner to calm a car down but also taking it flat. Like that.
It’s revealing that an EV is way more engaging when it presents as petrol, and slightly odd that a simulation adds authenticity, but there’s no arguing with the result.
Calming the delivery down also reveals a greater depth to this chassis and all-wheel drive, simply because you can dig into the poise more. If anything the combination of such a spritely front end with so much mass is limiting – through quick direction changes I sense a substantial pendulum effect lurking in the background. But it’s a load of fun to hustle, a ‘corner rascal’ as Hyundai brilliantly pitches it.
Certainly versus the other – admittedly much more affordable – EVs tested on the preceding pages, the Hyundai is leagues ahead. But against the Audi RS3 and Civic Type R? Close but not quite.
By Ben Barry
The heartland heroes: Golf GTI Clubsport vs GR Yaris vs Mini JCW
The road is narrow and switches from gloriously sighted sections to point-and-squirt bits. The misty weather is being very British and softens the edges of the hills around us; it’s damp enough to mean a coat is needed, not so wet that the wipers need to be on all the time. Grip alternates between good and scrabbly, so every touch of the right pedal is an exercise in caution.
The Golf GTI Clubsport and Mini JCW pierce the gloom ahead and behind like a pair of Belisha beacons as their red paint disappears and then reappears around each corner. The Toyota GR Yaris I’m in is the middle man, each bend a glorious excuse to revel in yet more dancing between gearchange, steering and brake.
I can’t remember a better drive in 25 years of doing this: attainable speed and attainable price in a right-sized package. There’s no way my long-term-test BMW M5 would be any quicker along these roads.
The Mini and the Golf have gone down the more traditional route of plenty of power and front-wheel drive. With 228bhp from the turbo four, the Mini has the same output as the pre-facelift version but torque is up by a healthy 44lb ft to 280lb ft. The Golf on test is the Clubsport, so it gets the more powerful 296bhp, 295lb ft version of the EA888 2.0-litre engine, its outputs increased by tweaked boost pressures.
The Toyota is the outlier: facelifted like the other two (and again with more power than before, 19bhp in this case) but with four-wheel drive and a relatively tiny 1.6-litre three-cylinder engine, it looks brilliant. I love the subtle surprise of it, where you get glimpses of more aggressive details the longer you look at it.
Earlier, we were up on top of a soaked moor where you’d think the Mini’s slightly lower power and smaller footprint might help it compared to the Golf. But in truth the ride is so appallingly firm that it’s not pleasant to drive – bouncing from bump to bump, it almost knocks the wind out of me a couple of times and I find myself wanting to load the back seats up with several body builders just to get some weight over the rear tyres.
Not that it isn’t entirely without redeeming features. Mini’s classic nose-led handling is very much in evidence (if only BMW wouldn’t insist on killing the steering’s delicacy by fitting such an overly padded steering wheel), and the car turns in sharply, darting from corner to corner like a spaniel on the scent. It’s best if you lean it into a bend and get the front outer tyre working hard – that way it starts to pivot and gives the car more rotation.
This generation has lost the manual gearbox, which is a shame, but you can’t deny the economics of it – no one buys manuals any more. Instead, it has a dual-clutch auto with paddles behind the steering wheel that bring a degree of interactivity, especially if it’s in Go-Kart mode. Frustratingly, though, the gear indicator isn’t within the head-up display so you have to glance across to the main instruments to get a read-out of what cog you’re in – it’s these little details that niggle in the Mini.
We pull into the car park at the bottom of the moor and some sheep glance idly across, reluctantly breaking from their task of surviving on this sodden hill. I don’t envy them one bit. And soon after I jump into the Golf I find I’m not envying the Mini’s next driver.
For starters, the Clubsport feels like it has actual springs and dampers fitted. This lends the car a degree of absorption that the Mini can’t match – because the tyres are in contact with the tarmac more often, everything gets better, from grip to feel to the state of my spine. It’s a more connected car so that even without its power advantage it’d still be quicker.
Like the Mini, there’s no manual option, but the VW’s gearbox has a slightly bigger torque cut when you pull a paddle, so the changes feel more interactive. I stick it straight into the Individual driving mode because it allows you to keep certain elements in the sportier trim (steering, drive, engine sound) while dialling the dampers back. If only the Mini had this adaptability.
There’s an electronic front differential that occasionally struggles to contain the torque in an uphill bend, but it’s not as washy as in the Alpine or eJCW. Crucially, it doesn’t annoy – you don’t feel like you’re fighting the car, even in these conditions. The GTI comes to you more naturally than the Mini and allows you to push or relax as you see fit. In the Mini, and to a lesser extent in the GR, you need to be on it the whole time to get the best out of them, but the Golf will drive with you, not against you.
It can still be great fun. I pile into a downhill left, on the brakes into the apex, and the GTI gets up on its toes, weight heading towards the nose and giving it grip, rear dancing to follow. It’s a lovely sensation and is the exact moment I know this is one of the cars that needs to go through to the final. That sort of delicacy is hard to ignore.
But what of the GR Yaris? Lower-set seats in this facelift, still slightly plasticky dash but, oh yes, also still a manual gearbox. And it gets even better, as your feet plunge into the footwell and you realise the brake and accelerator pedals are perfect for a spot of heel and toe.
My drive in the Toyota affirms everything that’s great not only about the GR Yaris but also about this class of car, how it has the potential to transport you to a higher plane. It’s automotive nirvana – the blissful state of enjoying a drive just for the sake of it, with no destination in mind.
You use every control in the GR to make every part of the car react, with the result that it all feels more interactive. With the short-throw gearshift (a little bit notchy but robust enough to be rapidly thrown across the gate) allied to the thin steering wheel, you can balance it so well on the accelerator and use that power to get the car rotating as you’d want it, Track mode engaged and the diffs doing their thing.
We sweep through a fast left at one point, the GR leaning into the bend more than you’d perhaps expect, but the squish and roll give you the confidence to get on the power early, letting the new torque split send all the 288lb ft rearwards. The seating position is better in the Golf, but the VW can’t match the Yaris’s steering delicacy because the front tyres in the Toyota aren’t doing quite so much heavy lifting.
It’s a glorious drive as we plunge off the moor and into the valley. The Golf leads but it’s the Toyota that wins the test: we need to count our blessings that this sort of car still exists, after legislators seem hell-bent on killing it off one way or another.
If they succeed, it’ll be nothing short of a crime against engineering.
By Piers Ward
The final reckoning and verdict… on track
After two days testing 10 cars, we’re down to four finalists. All the EVs have been stood down, with only the Hyundai really shining, while the Mini is the sole petrol model not to make the cut. Now Croft circuit will help us decide a winner from the Civic Type R, Golf GTI Clubsport, Audi RS3 and GR Yaris.
But it’s raining. By the time we arrive at the former Second World War RAF airfield in North Yorkshire, there’s a hazy spray that makes the flat, fast straights and critical braking points rather indistinct from the surrounding topography. This is sub-optimal for assessing the nuances of high-performance cars.
The Golf GTI seems a sensible way to dip a toe in the water and so it proves. It’s stable whether I’m flat on the throttle or hard on the brakes, plenty rapid enough, not to mention supple in the Nürburgring setting.
With heat building in its Hankook Ventus S1 Evo tyres, it also has a clear sense of being alive and connected to both the track and the driver. Its light-ish steering keys you into the surface, while the rear is impressively progressive any time you coax it out of line, and there’s a willing zing to the turbo four.
So it’s a shame it struggles to get the pretty modest 296bhp down to the tarmac, but at least any scrabbling is easy to moderate. And in fairness it is streaming wet.
Right now, though, the RS3 has the better of its Wolfsburg rival. The 395bhp super hatch cuts confidently along the straights, performance building progressively rather than with a kick, and it feels rampantly quick and richly tuneful with its five-cylinder gurgle. It pulls an easy gap over the Golf on the straights, the advantage significantly compounded through Croft’s corners.
Front tyres that are wider than the rears provide decent bite considering the conditions, but more useful is how intuitively and rapidly the Audi diverts power to the rear as you exit a corner, letting you cancel the understeer and tap into the RS3’s huge reserves of drive.
Exiting the 90º right-hander at Tower, I’ve got maybe 5º of opposite lock on, but the Audi digs into the surface and robustly hauls itself out where the Golf would flounder. Through the long, mid-speed right at the start of the lap, it’ll even do a fair impression of the old Quattro rally car – settling into a four-wheel drift accompanied by chirrups of flutter from the dump valve as I play with the throttle.
Pulling back into the pits, I’m convinced the RS3 is in with a shot at glory. Not so much the Civic Type R, which is just dreadful in the wet. This is surprising, given its 326bhp is only 10 per cent up on the Golf and both cars have a locking differential – mechanical in the Civic, electronic in the Golf – to tame their front axles. The Japanese five-door washes wide the second I so much as breathe on the throttle – sometimes so rapidly I fear slipping off the side of the track and into the barriers beyond.
The Type R is also too stiff in R+ and Sport damping modes, with the rear kicking out quickly when I flow some moderate speed to the fast left that leads into the Jim Clark Esses. Comfort mode calms it down but it feels wise to park the Honda and wait for the better weather forecast later today.
The GR Yaris is positively heroic in comparison. Updated last year with extra power and a revised chassis, first impressions are that it’s rather workmanlike, from the cheap slab of dashboard to seats that – while lower than those in the pre-facelift car – don’t cup you as brilliantly as the Civic’s.
Neither can the Toyota’s steering, gearshift or far from perfectly aligned pedals come close to the mechanical tactility of its domestic rival. But the steering’s chunky precision sets the scene for a focused drive – and makes the Golf’s helm feel decidedly sleepy in comparison.
It takes just one lap to know I’d place the Toyota top in these conditions. Key is the combination of a gently adjustable and compliant chassis, mechanical bite and the reassurance of its rear-biased all-wheel-drive system, particularly the way it finds such positive drive through mid-speed corners. At fast and flowing Croft, the GR Yaris is a proper Scrappy-Doo of a hot hatch, always bursting with attitude and ready to go.
Most astonishing of all is just how much fight there is in the little turbocharged three-cylinder engine – even in fifth gear at 85mph it pulls hard, where a typical economy-focused triple will get breathless. The flexibility lets you short shift, carry speed and calm everything down. If you want to have maximum fun whatever the weather, minimise off-track excursions and give supercars nightmares, the GR Yaris takes some beating.
But as we break for lunch (this really is quite significant toil), there’s a nagging suspicion that today’s weather is preventing us from truly exploring these cars’ characters. I don’t yet feel confident to declare a winner, and our previous road driving suggests the Civic in particular can shine far brighter.
Thankfully a chill breeze is drying the last vestiges of dampness from the track as we sit in the Croft break room, and by 1pm it’s bone dry. Come 1.07pm it’s obvious we’ll have to revise our pre-lunch rankings.
The Audi is the biggest loser, even if it’s still very good in the dry. It’s just that the comfort we experienced during road driving clearly introduces a level of isolation that limits the depth of driver feel on track. The steering and chassis just aren’t particularly connected, a fuzziness that’s only amplified by a potent if rather lazy powertrain. There’s too much lag, a softness to its responses and the gearchanges glide more than pop.
Where the Audi falls back, the Golf steps up to the plate. It’s composed, safe and supple, but with a level of detail through its controls and a vitality to its powertrain that makes the Audi seem a little numb. Patience is still required to avoid igniting the VW’s front tyres, but there’s a cohesion to this GTI that instantly encourages an attacking style. Even the combination of squish, support and position offered by the seats is bang on. This is your hot hatch for all occasions, same as it ever was.
The Civic easily has the measure of it on a dry track, though. Where it struggled in the wet, now the precise and responsive controls combine with a front axle that actually has a chance of getting the power down.
When it does, the Civic is rampantly rapid. There’s a little lag then a slug of boost to spike your heart rate – a binary character that adds to the drama and is intensified because you’re shifting gears manually and dancing over perfectly placed pedals.
This focus extends to a chassis that feels tight, front-led and reminiscent of a touring car. Pointy and direct, it never quite sheds its stiffness and wants to straighten quickly any time I get the rear end moving. All the rivals are more languid but the Honda’s clinical approach to picking apart a lap has its own appeal. Braking is pretty fantastic too, with good feedback from the pedal.
But it also feels like Honda has missed a trick in not making this generation of Type R four-wheel drive, because with Croft dry and the front Michelins doing a much better job of putting the power down, it still pushes wide under power. This gets a little tedious.
Given the Civic now has so much of the spirit of Mitsubishi Evos and Subaru Imprezas of old, it’d feel fantastic with the kind of gritty mechanical all-wheel-drive system of those WRC homologations.
As it is, the Civic is widely admired by all our testers, yet its lack of front-end bite ultimately holds it back. However, while the Golf and Audi are better daily drivers – and superior to drive here in the wet – they place third and fourth overall respectively. The Civic might have more flaws but when it’s on form – a great road, a dry track – only one other car can beat it, and that’s the GR Yaris.
Leagues ahead of the Civic in the wet, it carries that momentum into the dry, fundamentally feeling much the same but allowing you to explore so much more of its potential – tweaking its short chassis, using the rear-biased all-wheel drive and the three-cylinder engine’s generous torque.
That it’s also one of the most affordable models in this entire test seals the deal.
By Ben Barry