If dangerous roads are actually safer for you to drive on, then the Renault Clio Sport F1 R27 is the safest car on the road. Let me qualify this statement.
Highway engineers in the United States live by the “green book”. This book outlines all the key safety concepts engineers must incorporate in their designs.
A highway’s “design speed” is the first such concept an engineer must account for, by considering the speed 85% of the highway users will travel at on any particular stretch. The engineer knows, however, that 85% of users will exceed the posted speed limit by at least 15kph. This is why a stretch of highway posted at 120kph actually carries a design speed of 135kph. Engineers then incorporate safety designs according to this figure with larger shoulders, clear zones at curves, reinforced crash barriers, smoother tarmac and more gradual changes in elevation. All these make it easier for you to go faster.
Studies the world over tell an interesting story. Reflectors and chevrons are proved to increase speeds on mountain roads, as do sign-posted sections warning of sharp bends ahead.
A perfect way to demonstrate this is on the Thomas Baines pass that runs along the coast from Camps Bay to Llandudno. Should you be lucky enough to catch it free of traffic, you can relish in stretching your car’s legs with its mix of sweeping bends and smooth elevations.
But the quickest you’ll be seduced into going the whole pass will be at the recently overhauled section at Oudekraal, with its new tarmac, wider shoulders and reflector-lit barriers. Barriers have taken over from Thomas Baines’s signature stone pillars, but does that make it safer?
Barriers are safer. But if the only thing keeping me out of the Atlantic Ocean were some stone pillars, I’d no doubt rein in my speed. Think of it as the seduction of the perfect road. Which brings me to the seduction of speed in the Renault Clio Sport F1 R27.
The limited edition Clio Sport R27 is differentiated from the standard Clio Sport only by an autographed F1 plaque, F1 racing stickers and a sportier suspension set-up. But just like the standard Clio Sport, it’s an absolute screamer. We drove Clio number two out of the batch of 27.
The rest of the car is identical to the standard Clio Sport so it’s best to view the F1 R27 as a clever marketing exercise by Renault to draw attention back to its brilliant little hot hatch.
The instant you pull away in the Clio Sport it feels as though someone has shot you down the road with a catty. The acceleration and power is elastic and the excitement this car delivers is hard to match.
The Clio makes a staggering 145kW and 215Nm from its normally aspirated 2,0-litre motor that revs clean up to 8 000rpm. After some time with it, it’s hard not to fall in love with this engine’s foibles and eccentricities.
At idle it sounds like any other four- cylinder but with a jab on the throttle the cylinders fill their lungs and chug out a meaty bark. Then you set off in a burst of tyre squeal and you just need to hold on for dear life from there. From zero to 100kph takes seven odd seconds but the sound and the chaos make it feel faster. The torque takes a while to get into its stride but that’s because this Renault Sport engine waits until 5 000rpm before it goes completely ballistic.
Maximum power and torque run rampant between 5 000 and 8 000rpm and by that stage it feels like racing car stuff. And should you back off the throttle for whatever reason, the wonderfully gruff pops and splutters emanate from the exhausts like the sound of internal combustion going to waste.
Not that you’d want to back off though because the throttle response is so instant, unsanitised and totally addictive, you just want to floor it everywhere. But as it’s a 2,0-litre motor, if you could bring yourself to drive like a civilised person you would achieve pretty good economy, as low as 7 litres every 100km.
Lovely French engines aside, my misgivings about the Clio Sport are the following: the hard ride coupled with the short wheelbase make it bumpy on most roads. This can find the stiff chassis out should you encounter a jarring mid-corner bump on your travels. The shorter the wheelbase, the less margin you have for error before a spin.
The bumpy ride put the Clio out of shape more often than was ideal for my liking. This means you need to show the little Clio quite a lot of respect in the corners.
The gate on the six-speed manual gearbox could be sportier as well. With all the shifting you need to do to keep the Clio Sport in its power band, the gate between gears should be shorter, snappier.
The last thing is the power steering. Clios are perfect town cars and the assisted steering works well around town but at speed I wish it were slightly weightier.
Why I talk of the seduction of speed in the Clio Sport F1 R27 is because it doesn’t wrap you in kid gloves and tell you everything is going to be okay. It isn’t like the highway engineer seducing you with more speed in what seems like a safer environment. It’s the opposite in the Clio Sport. It’s like driving everywhere with only stone pillars separating you from the cliffs. You’re so involved in the driving experience, it’s safer than all the reflectors in the world. Everything seems real and visceral.
By the time you’ve screamed your way to a road’s design speed of 135kph, you’ll be as satisfied as someone going twice as fast in a big German saloon.