Why Hot-Hatches are Now Faster than Old Supercars

Right, so there has been a whole load of new hot hatches setting OUTRAGEOUS times at the Nurburgring, and by that, I mean way faster than some of the supercars that used to top the rankings.

Look, this Audi RS3 is faster around the lap than a Pagani Zonda S, the Honda Civic Type R is faster than a Nissan GT-R and this Megane RS Trophy-R is the quickest of the lot - faster than every supercar you used to stick on your wall. Yep - Bugattis, Lamborghinis, Ferarris - THE LOT. Even the holder of the moose test record, the mighty Citroen Xantia.

And whilst it’s obvious that new cars are faster than old ones, these are hatchbacks - family cars. They have no reasonable right to be beating the Ferraris and Lamborghinis of just ten years ago.

So let me tell you about the key engineering breakthroughs that made them so fast.

⭕ Why New Cars Keep Failing This Crash Test

⭕ Why Airless Tyres Kinda Suck

#DrivenMedia #HotHatches #Supercar

[OVERDRIVE.studios]

All the Type R owners are going to be screaming 🤣 Which of these cars would you have? The Megane? Or an old 599?

*Don't forget to subscribe!*

[tavirosu]

"This are hatchbacks...family cars"
Engineers at Renault Sport looking at their Megane RS Trophy-R with no backseats and carbon wheels: Oh, we overdid it guys!

[dj_laundry_list]

If you had just said 'the tyres are better now' and ended it, I would've been satisfied

[dave_R_GR]

You left out one massiv point.

The track itself improved much in the last 10-15 years as well and got faster.

[AnthonyRosbottom]

I remember about twenty years ago one of the car magazines had an article on the best way to spend £1000 to get the fastest track car possible. They settled for a second hand Peugeot 305gti for £500 and spent the rest of the money on a new set of quality tires.

[G]

A Nurburgring lap with classic supercars such as the McLaren F1, Ferrari F40, Ferrari F50 and Lamborghini Diablo with suitably sized and rated modern day extreme performance road tyres should yield pretty interesting results, especially once their suspensions are tuned to match them.

[joeblack]

I can confirm my Honda type R with an enzo engine with two turbochargers, four superchargers and a Lamborghini exhaust system is in fact faster than a veyron

[FliesFLL]

I had a '77 VW Rabbit, the US version, with 80 hp and 90 ft/lb of torque. It weighed 1800 pounds, and two of my friends could lift the back end off the ground! This car was a tiger from stoplight to stoplight, and despite the 9.0 second 0-60 time, it would kill my friend's old American cars with V8's time after time. These were growling old Pontiacs and Chever-Lays, cars that talked tough but couldn't get out of their own way. My Rabbit made short work of them through the quarter mile and for some reason got a rep around my high school as "fast".

Welcome to 1984, when an 80 hp car could be considered fast....

[nicolashuffman]

Something like 15 years ago, Racing Beat built a Miata fitted with race tires. It pulled 1.0G, which was astounding for the time. These days, a similar car on wide maximum performance tires with 200 treadwear can make something like 1.2-1.4G.

[joelsmith]

Good video, but you forgot to mention improvements in brake, pad and ABS technology - this also makes a huge difference to lap times.

[SilverScarletSpider]

This is why I personally feel that 200hp to 300hp is the sweet spot for sports cars for my garage. Anything more is just excessive and will break the speed limit way too early.
Tired of speeding tickets and corruption.

[whjpdrq]

The Focus Rs is amazing. My father bought one about a year ago and I was really impressed by the performance of it. Three months ago he bought a Porsche 911 Carrera 4s, but I need to say that in the city the Focus Rs is a lot better. It is faster in the town, uses about 9 litres while the Porsche over 16. Although that the Porsche may be more powerful, more expensive and more prestige I like the Ford better!!!

[namenamename]

Ah yes, the dual clutch transmission, made infamous by that one top gear episode where they made fun of the german word for it, "Doppelkupplungsgetriebe"

[austenchevalier]

Small, light, fwd and add a big engine .. whilst not technically a hatch, surely the 60s Mini Cooper S was the first of the breed from which hot hatches evolved?

[Salesman]

About the torque steering: My first car had 250hp to front wheels and amount of torque steer would differ wildly thanks to VVT and extremely aggressive automagic-gearbox. Made spirited driving more terrifying than fun at times thanks to somewhat limited driving characteristics of '95 Opel. Really makes one appreciate modern cars on how easy they are to drive fast.

[adrianmanousos]

You should also consider the fact that the Nürburgring gets saver and due to that faster every year.
You can clearly see this in times from 2014/15 compared to times from 16/17 where facelift versions of cars drove extremly faster times, like the 991.2 GT3RS drove 25 seconds faster than the 991.1
From 2015 to 2016 they made huge changes to risiky parts of the track because in a 2015 VLN race a Nissan GTR flew into the spectators and killed someone.

[SpadajSpadaj]

Well, that's kinda to be expected. The super/hypercars are - in a good part - best at the high end of the power curve. You have the gear ratios to be able to use the whole power range to reach ridiculous speeds. But on the low end - with high gear ratios - you're not limited by the engine power as much as by the ability to transfer that tractive force to the pavement. And that's where the tyres and suspension come into play.

[fossilfueled]

I would love to see an original Yellowbird on some brand new tyres and see how much faster it goes.

[axilleas]

We don’t need more power. We need less weight.

[sdi]

Nicely done, but perhaps you should make a small correction about the introduction of LSD's to hot hatches. Not sure about the Honda Civic Type R, but my 1999 Integra Type R came standard with an LSD. Considering that was 22 years ago, the technology for that era was pretty impressive. I have owned my Integra Type R since new and I am about to give it another oil change at 310, 000Kms. My outlay in those 22 years has been less than $10, 000, which includes 5 sets of tyres, 3rd clutch, 3 distributors, one only set of disc pads and one radiator. The motor is untouched, yet I rev it to 9, 000 rpm every day. I recently fitted a sports air filter and added some special German fuel additive, resulting in a noticeable improvement in torque and acceleration by as much as 10%. The feeling of exhilaration when I drive this car is just pure pleasure and even though I have the money to buy a new hot hatch, I really have no interest in parting with this car. It really is special and is the last of the true performance naturally aspirated engines.