Renault Megane RS Trophy 2018 first drive

It’s also a quick one. Throttle response is good for a heavily blown turbo, there’s a degree of induction noise but most of the soundtrack comes from the exhaust’s melodramatic pops and crackles on the overrun. The Trophy we tried was a six-speed manual, whose shift is notchier than you’d hope, but positive enough. We drove the Trophy on road and track, with the circuit drive coming first, in a car shod with the new 007 tyres; at first in the damp but it mostly dried out. 

Because you can (and probably would) spec the Cup chassis on a standard RS, there is no great transformation here; the Trophy drives the same way, to my feel, as an RS with Cup settings. I guess with a direct back-to-back test through the same corner with the lighter wheels and 007 tyres compared with regular rims and 001s, you could spot minor changes in wheel control and steering feel, but it’d be of the kind that disappears with a bit of tyre wear or heat or pressure difference, leaving the inherent balance the same.

That balance, then, is good, and engaging, but still curious. There was a time when a Mégane would be the clear driver’s choice over a Honda or Volkswagen or Hyundai, but that time isn’t now. 

The Mégane is arguably still the most agile of these, and almost certainly the most willing to engage the rear wheels in a corner, because it adopted four-wheel steer to help do it. This electronically controlled assistance to the back wheels steers them in the opposite direction to the fronts at anything below 62mph, and more markedly if you choose Race on the drive mode selector than if you’re in the Normal or Sport settings. Renault reckons Race might be a bit bitey, too aggressive, for the road. 

There’s no doubt that it’s willing to go plenty sideways, plenty quickly, if you turn in to a corner on anything other than throttle. Lift and it’ll tuck in, trail the brakes and it’ll tuck in, just turn and it’ll tuck in. The Mégane is as lairy as front-drivers currently get, and if you then get back on the power, it pulls itself straight again. There’s a degree of torque steer – manageable but evident – and good steering feel, but the balance you experience is usually one of managing understeer or managing oversteer, rather than just playing with a hint of either. 

In the old Renaultsport Mégane, especially in Trophy specification, you felt you were in charge of the most precise, scything, accurate hot hatch in the world. Now I don’t think that’s true. A Golf GTI is more passive, true, but it’s very accurate, and a Hyundai i30 N has, to me, a more pleasing and, crucially, more natural chassis balance too, while I think a Honda Civic Type R feels more precise (if, to me, less exciting). 

The Mégane feels like it’s artificially helping you out, noticing you turning the wheel and deciding you want to turn loads, right now. I wonder if active rear-steer is the automotive equivalent of 3D cinema: an unnecessary addenda, put on to increase the perceived drama and enthusiasm to something that didn’t really need it in the first place. The only cars I’ve driven with it fitted, which I didn’t want to try them without, were Rolls-Royces.

I think the Trophy is good on the road, mind. Body control is tight but ride comfort is relatively pliant, despite the increase in stiffness over the regular chassis, because there are hydraulic bump stops to round off the worst of things. Its cornering stance feels more natural on the road, too, with the drive mode and therefore rear-steer’s aggressiveness knocked back, although it’s still towards the upper end of the agility scale. Unusually, though, on the customisable drive modes, I found myself doing the opposite to usual, and upping the steering weight and lowering the engine (therefore exhaust) shoutyness.