Even under hard acceleration the steering only encounters marginal torque steer - it's a huge leap forward from the MkI Focus RS.

    So, ignoring the ghost of a Scandinavian spannerman sitting in the passenger seat and shaking his head sagely as he puffs on a pipe, I fire the Focus RS up. The five-pot settles into its muted rumble, and as I set off, I am astounded by the refinement of the RS. Its wild bodywork, complete with diffusers, vents and wheelarches designed by the Anabolic Steroids Appreciation Society, comes in just three colours – Frozen White, Performance Blue and Ultimate Green (my personal fave) – all of which make it look rock hard. So what you are not expecting is that, if you’re not pushing the Focus RS to within an inch of its limits, it is as civil and nice to drive – if not better – than a Focus ST.

    Start to push the envelope, though, and the miracles begin to occur. Full throttle acceleration out of tight corners on rutted and cambered roads does not result in a sweaty-palmed moment littered with expletives for the driver. If I said there was no torque-steer, or no sense of the diff shuffling the delivery of power, I’d be lying… but it’s so minute a sensation that you actually laugh out loud when you flatten the loud pedal. Because, when it is getting its power down cleanly (which is all of the time), the RS is ridiculously fast.

    The five-pot engine feels every one of its 301bhp, but unlike other turbos, which have midrange grunt and a drab, wheezy top-end, the Focus RS just keeps on hauling. It is brutally quick in any gear, at any engine speed, and it sounds utterly gorgeous too – sitting behind another FRS being driven like it was rented, the pops and bangs from the bellowing exhaust ahead merged with my own five-cylinder’s yowl behind. Yes, it really is like being in a WRC car.

    And then we come to the handling. Ford has always been good at making cars for the driving enthusiast. The company’s near misses are the exception, rather than the rule – in general, the vast majority of Fords are superb handlers. But this takes the garibaldi. It will not understeer, no matter what you try and do to it. The steering is as direct and rapier like in its responses as the stonking engine is to large prods of the throttle, while the body is absolutely forbidden from moving around at all on its suspension.

    This, coupled with the sort of brakes that would stop a TGV in full flight, make it a machine in which you attack each corner with every last ounce of your own ability, safe in the knowledge that the car has masses in reserve. This is a 301bhp FWD machine that doesn’t just handle its power and torque… it actually reattunes your mind to accept that incredibly accomplished performance and roadholding is not the preserve of RWD alone. The Focus RS is excruciatingly remarkable in every respect – I cannot think of anything about it that I do not like, apart from an interior which isn’t that different from the ST’s (but that’s no bad thing, because the Focus cabin is perfectly well-made and laid out).

    The Focus RS completely reaffirms my faith in the Blue Oval, then, and proves itself as the absolute peak of hot hatch performance, together with the Megane R26.R. These two have all the bases covered – if the Megane is the track dominator and glass-smooth A-road destroyer, then the Focus is the B-road champion and the one you simply marvel at each time you drive it.

    And here’s our concern: the green movement is growing, and while supercars will always be around to pander to the disgustingly rich who care not one jot about crunches of credit, other performance cars are going to have to take a hit. Manufacturers will put them on back burners as they seek to make ever more parsimonious, and tedious, diesels and petrols. And the hot hatch is particularly endangered, in our view – after all, who in a fascist future state filled with Priuses is going to be allowed a hotted-up version of what could otherwise be a sensible car? No one, that’s who. And with no demand, supply will eventually dry up. Meaning, in all likelihood, this Focus RS is as brilliant as the hot hatch will ever get.

    Can anyone surpass 301bhp and make it work in as utterly sublime a fashion as this? It’s highly unlikely, and for that reason, the RS is going to become a motoring demigod, if it isn’t already. We give it eleven out of ten.