Fifth Gear brings out the best in Ford’s 300HP Focus RS

Fifth Gear, our good old U.K-based auto review television show has got its hands on the most powerful Focus ever, the 2009 Ford Focus RS and host Jason Plato, who also races in the British Touring Car Championships was given the task of bringing out the best, and the worst out of the powerful hot hatch in beautiful but challenging mountainous roads.

The Focus RS with its 300HP inline-5 “Duratec RS” power plant that is also capable of a massive 440Nm of torque received an excellent review overall. Plato also mentioned that the turbo lag which was evident actually helped improve the handling. A front wheel drive car with a 300HP engine should suffer from a great deal of torque steer during hard acceleration, something which was expected with this new RS.

However according to the Fifth Gear host, the slight turbo lag actually helped keep torque steer at bay, especially when exiting a corner with a heavy foot on the accelerator. Anyway I will say no more. Please continue reading to watch the 4 minute 11 second-long review.

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Harvinder Sidhu

Harvinder Singh Sidhu thinks there's nothing better than Formula 1, not even sliced bread. Having written about cars since 2006, he plunged head first into the industry out of a passion for all things four-wheeled and everything in between. The F1 enthusiast has been following the sport since 1999 and has been keeping up with it since. In between races he keeps himself busy as the host of the Driven motoring show and as our version of the Joker.

 

Comments

  • inquiry on Feb 26, 2009 at 7:06 pm

    I never drove powerful car. What is torque steer?

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  • B33MER on Feb 26, 2009 at 7:14 pm

    1st …. lol gotta love fifth gear :) 440NM wow …. it's a good thing Ford Focus has one the best FWD chassis in the market right now …

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  • Michael on Feb 26, 2009 at 7:23 pm

    Is this what the Satria Neo GTI wants to be when it grows up?

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  • the stik (Member) on Feb 26, 2009 at 8:01 pm

    the color hurting my eyes arrghhhhhh but nice dowh..

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  • e-nabilll (Member) on Feb 26, 2009 at 8:10 pm

    we only get those old episods of fifth gear on astro….bloody hell!

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  • menawan on Feb 26, 2009 at 8:43 pm

    Wat the …… Holy NICEEEEEEEE

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  • menawan on Feb 26, 2009 at 8:52 pm

    Buy blue one.. not green one.. Muahhahaha… smells like politics

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  • Mini_Mack on Feb 26, 2009 at 10:07 pm

    the logo is blue…and the car is green…the lights are red! ahahahaa….take that POLITICS! ahahahaa…

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  • Jaybond on Feb 26, 2009 at 11:10 pm

    Somebody should bring on the Focus RS vs Evo vs Scooby ! Only then we can see how effective it is..

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  • MyviKiller on Feb 26, 2009 at 11:25 pm

    [quote comment="215498"]Buy blue one.. not green one.. Muahhahaha… smells like politics[/quote]

    PAS and BN?

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  • khimfoh on Feb 27, 2009 at 12:05 am

    ….i dunno but i kinda like the green colour… :)

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  • Heng Chow on Feb 27, 2009 at 2:03 am

    Nice car for sure…

    But if it is sold my Ford Malaysia under Sime Darby…

    Somemore serviced by Ford PJ… hahha… dun play play.

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  • fastcx (Member) on Feb 27, 2009 at 3:21 am

    love fifth gear! jason drive great!

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  • bobdbilder on Feb 27, 2009 at 6:00 am

    Torque steer is what happens when you give it a bit of stick and the slower tyre gets more torque. And you tend to swerve a bit to one side under power.

    Fifth Gear team is the real deal people! All of em racers, from Tiff, Vicky, Tom …hey Johnny Smith looks like the guy on Redline Mag that had a pimped out Jag XKR…Alright, almost all of em are worth their salt. Compared to celeb journalists turned wannabe racers on the other show, I'll stick with these peeps.

    I always play Tiff in GTR Evo in the Aston Martin trying to carve up Nordschleife. He makes me look good..hehe

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  • fantastic machine. i love it.

    as for the colour…..eh not so much. too ah beng.

    personally i like it white. smoke those evos and subarus on the traffic lights!

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  • the stik (Member) on Feb 27, 2009 at 3:53 pm

    urghh arghhh my eyes still hurt.. the color.. superman also can die laaa bcos of the 'krypton' color.. but the cars sounds fab for a hot-hatch..

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  • nighttrain on Feb 27, 2009 at 7:13 pm

    This hijau pucuk pisang on both Focus and Scirocco looks good to me.. especially in KL city center.. green babe magnet (suppossedly affordable).

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  • Charger on Feb 28, 2009 at 9:07 am

    That's 1 car that can compete with Golf GTI side by side, in term of performance and looks. Except the colour of course. You'll be stopped by police, not because of HID, but the paint made your whole car like a movie HID already.

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  • Mini_Mack on Feb 28, 2009 at 5:36 pm

    hey…this car will be stopped by police because definitely they also want one! ahahaaa…

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  • Sexythang on Mar 01, 2009 at 9:20 am

    it depends really. most people are more interested from the point of view of normal drivers not race drivers. 5th gear manages to make even the best of cars boring.

    i have a feeling this is not a good car as they make it out to be during the press release. wait till jeremy reviews it in his column and see what it actually is like. they need to admit it truthfully that its too much power on the wrong wheels.

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