![]() First flattening of the throttle, on a slip road in the wet in this case, is enough to make you giggle and blurt expletives (while also tightening your grip to keep the thing in a straight line). Its 302bhp engine, closely related to that of the BMW M135i/M235i xDrive, albeit with a new turbo and intake system, is as flexible as it is brawny, deploying its 299lb ft of torque from only 1750rpm. Most corners disappear on fast-forward, the steering wheel there to hang on to as much as steer with, while the grippy tyres and mechanical locking diff take care of business. Even on these rollicking roads of Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire – natural hot-hatch habitat – you’d have to be trying really hard for the Mini to get properly bent out of shape. But in terms of outright grip, at sub-Georg speeds at least, it’s ultimately tenacious. ![]() No wonder CAR’s Georg Kacher found the GP3 eye-openingly twitchy on the autobahn where he clocked an indicated 175mph, 11mph beyond its quoted top speed – it feels a handful at a third of that pace. You need a firm grip on the steering, which pulls at cambers, torque-steers under power and occasionally multiplies the effect of both at the same time. The regular Mini JCW, from which this car is a mutant evolution, is available with adaptive dampers but the GP rides on passive, track-focused shocks. The suspension is unyieldingly firm, the driver’s seat slapping you on the back like an overly rowdy mate who’s had a few too many pints. On the move, the Mini feels as purposeful as it looks from the get-go, fizzing down the road with the energy of a rattled Coke can. Deliberately, no attempt has been made to blend them visually the wheelarch pressings of the base car’s shell beneath jar unashamedly with the aero shrouds. Fashioned from carbonfibre recycled from BMW i3 and i8 production, with a raw matt finish that makes them look like they constantly need a good clean, they enable the GP to sit on wider tracks without altering the standard bodyshell. There’s something of the cartoon character about the GP3, from its hooped boot spoiler to its giant aero side spats, flaring from the body like the wings from Hermes’ sandals. The Mini GP comes out swinging, from the moment its turbo 2.0-litre four-cylinder fires up with a guttural smoker’s cough, adding a couple of hacking fuel-pop exclamation marks from its stubby twin exhausts. ![]() Which offers the hardest hit? Mini name, massive thrills ![]() So if you want the most hardcore hot hatch on sale today, one that’s closer to a sports car than a shopping car, these are the two hottest in the world right now. The Renault holds the Nürburgring Nordschleife lap record for front-wheel-drive production cars at 7min 40.1sec, and the Mini GP3 too has lapped it in under eight minutes. And both are once-in-a-lifecycle cars – this is the third Mini GP in 14 years (officially, it’s called the GP3), and the third fully committed Megane the first was 2008’s plastic-windowed R26R, the second 2014’s 275 Trophy-R. They’ve also squeezed their production run down to a limited series, in the Megane’s case to 500 cars worldwide (32 for the UK) and a less exclusive 3000 for the Mini (575 for the UK). Both the new £35k Mini John Cooper Works GP and the £51k Renault Megane RS Trophy-R have binned their back seats to save weight, waved goodbye to ride comfort with ruthlessly focused suspension set-ups, and somehow squeezed near-enough 300 horsepower through their front wheels only.
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