Top Gear's 10-car hot hatch shootout: is there hope for its future?

Anglesey, early January and the sun’s not long up. The point is we can tell. There it is, in the sky, golden fingers of light reaching down in front of Snowdonia. Which is currently living up to its name. We’re heading that way soon, but let’s not worry about that now, because today our luck is in.

Truth be told, we’ve all been looking forward to this test since we toddled off to munch mince pies. Hot hatches. They’re brilliant. They’re also a rapidly dying breed for reasons that I... well... I, um, I just can’t work out. We’ve got 10 cars here, and that’s pretty much every hot hatch available today.

A decade back we did a similar grab ’em all hot hatch test. In the end we had to cap it at 20 cars. Several core firms from then no longer build a hot hatch at all. Ten years from now, will anything be left of a class of car which is not only central to the lives of every car nut, but remains every bit as relevant today as it’s ever been?

Photography: Mark Fagelson

God knows what’s going on. No fast Peugeots any more, Ford’s commitment fatally wavering, RenaultSport has disappeared altogether, the hot Civic and Yaris built in limited numbers to appease CO2 limits, not a halfway house hybrid in sight anywhere here. It’s not a rosy picture is it?

But let’s not drag ourselves down too far. Because we have 10 cars (seven combustion, three electric), all of them available new today, all of them worth the billing and, in the Alpine A290, a reason to be hopeful. It’s electric, but the right size, the right attitude, the right wheel drive. It’s faithful to what’s gone before, shines a light into the future and, you’ll be shocked to learn, has something in common with those rorty Renaults of old.

The suspension has been done by people who know hot hatches. I drove it up here across the heart of Wales yesterday and discovered there’s a verve to the damping that speaks of good things underneath. It doesn’t feel heavy in your hands, there’s a hint of keenness, plus decent front end bite.

One of the first things to do at Anglesey is gather it together with our other EVs, Hyundai’s Ioniq 5 N and the Cupra Born VZ. There are disputes about the Renault’s – sorry Alpine’s – clumsily overwrought styling additions, it’s not as neat as the 5 that’s for sure, but we forgive an awful lot for rally style driving lamps and, as I had discovered on the drive up, at least it’s the right size. Mostly. It’s actually wider and taller than the Golf, but a sense of supermini perspective is regained by driving it alongside the enormous Ioniq 5 N.

One of the things we need to talk about in this new age of hot hatches is how to actually define them, and there’s a lot about the 4.7 metre long, 2,225kg Hyundai that’s more SUV than hatch. The proportions are hatchlike, the scale isn’t. And it has the power of a supercar, over 300bhp more than anything else here. But it’s a question of approach and demeanour and the imaginative 5 N has proved itself time and again.

By the end of the day it will have turned in the fastest lap of all, but when we just head out on track and drive it none of us go for max attack mode, but instead engage N e-shift and play with the ‘gearbox’. The way it manages torque, the artificial noise – it might not be as fast like this, but it draws you into the experience, opens up new dimensions.

And that’s where the Alpine suffers. On a smooth track you don’t really notice what the damping is doing, but you do notice the lack of noise, drama and vitality from the drivetrain. There are soundtracks, but they’re too muted, it’s a one tone drone from the moment you scrabble out of one corner to the moment you brake for the next. And it’s the same in the Cupra. It’s swift and – ooh – RWD, but shorn of character in a way the Ioniq somehow isn’t.

But what great engines remain among our seven combustion machines? You’d have looked to BMW in previous years, a sweet inline six driving the rear wheels. Not any more. Now it’s a turbo four that’s shorter on charisma and charm than the VW Group’s version found, in slightly different states of tune, in both the Golf GTI and Audi S3.

Thank God we can still rely on the Japanese. The smallest capacity here, the fewest cylinders, the most charisma, I adore the GR Yaris’s engine. The way torque basically explodes at 2,500rpm, the grunting, gnashing engine note, the whole car vibrating with energy and keenness, giving all it’s got to give.

The old one ran out of puff at the top end, but this new one, complete with 19bhp more, keeps hauling all the way – matching the 115mph peak speed of the 300+bhp BMW and Cupra before the heavy uphill braking zone into Rocket. For overall lap time it destroys them both and feels born to do it.

This is the first automatic GR I’ve tested and I don’t hate it at all. It’s not even a twin clutch, but it feels like one, popping the shifts home the second you ask for them and generally feeling as up for it as the rest of the package. The price may have gone up, the hype may have died down, but this tight, together little charger of a hot hatch remains an addictive thing to drive.

We were spoiled by good weather and the views Anglesey delivers like nowhere else

In that it aligns itself with two other cars: the Focus ST Edition and the Civic Type R. Both are front drive with mechanical LSDs to get as much traction from the surface as they can. Important when it’s about 2°C outside. The Focus is the back of the class paper dart thrower. It’s extrovert and naturally talented, but a bit wayward, happy to lead you astray with its springy steering and torque steer. The Civic is head pupil, the sickeningly talented individual we all hate to love. That used to be eminently possible because of the way it looked. No longer. It’s refined now and so is the driving experience.

The Civic is aglow with a sheen of engineering perfection. Every component in lockstep with every other, from seats and gearbox to differential and brakes. Harmony personified it flows around the circuit in a way nothing else here comes close to matching, carries more speed, grips harder under braking, communicates more clearly and evenly through steering and chassis. Yes, it has 265-width front tyres each 30mm broader than the Focus’s, and that helps, but it should also mean more tramlining, more weave under braking, less accuracy and feel. Not for a second. It’s just wonderfully flattering.

And also very, very lively. Something else it has in common with the Ford. These are the most grown up cars here, the Civic particularly liable to oversteer when trail braking into an apex. I completely overdrove it on the first timed lap and it was snatchy, ESP (which hovers in the background even when it says it is off) triggering jerkily, it felt like a car that shouldn’t come out of hibernation until April at the earliest, when tyre temps have had a chance to blossom.

Until I backed off the pressure and it shot round faster than everything bar a Hyundai that had twice the power. Still, it’s very stiffly sprung in R+ mode, the closest the hot hatch class comes to providing a road-going touring car.

The Golf GTI Clubsport wants to be a member of the Civic/Focus gang, but doesn’t quite commit. Personally, I really enjoyed it. It has a level of track capability and finesse that surprised me, akin to the Civic in the smooth way it dragged itself out of tight corners. It delivers speed easily, demands little of its driver, but delivers quite a lot.

We got the three core Germans together, and I could see why most of my colleagues leant towards the S3 rather than the GTI. It has a 4WD system that – while not as active and engaging as the Toyota’s – seems to have a similar mindset about how to get itself out of corners. Where’s the understeer gone? That’s what Audi S cars do best. Not anymore.

The S3 has now gained the same trick torque splitting technology for the rear axle as the RS3, with an electronically controlled clutch on each rear driveshaft. The effects aren’t as pronounced as in the RS, but that’s good. Where the RS feels artificially enhanced, here in the S it’s just plain effective. You exit corners neutrally and rapidly.

Which means it appears the Audi and BMW have basically swapped 4WD systems. In most BMWs, xDrive is rear biased, but the 1 Series is based on Mini technology and its 4WD system features a Haldex clutch setup that is front drive until it decides it needs a hand and, even then, can only send 50 per cent of its torque rearwards. The gearbox is lazy, the brakes aren’t particularly strong, there’s not much steering feel and little enthusiasm.

Unfortunately for the BMW Group, that’s not the end of the bad news because this generation of Mini is a shadow of its former self. Of all the hot hatch misfirings we’ve had of late, this is surely the biggest. A Cooper S used to be tenacious, engaging. This one claims to drive like a go-kart, but is more ride on lawnmower, more bothered about its features and graphics than getting down to the task at hand.

It’s the cheapest car here by a long chalk, yet I drive it round Anglesey and realise within a lap that with its flaccid steering, hesitant gearbox and wooden brakes this is no longer a car aimed at people who love to drive. The writing was on the wall with the GP back in 2020, but the tumble down the order continues.

What’s buoyant? The Cupra is surprisingly keen, the steering wheel firm in your hands, the suspension supportive, the seats both firm and supportive. Bravo to Cupra for not going 4WD, but instead sending 322bhp to the back wheels. You can tell. It’s nicely balanced great – more than that front to rear. But you sit high in a car that comes across as tall and narrow, which unpicks your confidence.

The Alpine has a similar issue inspiring confidence, but here it’s the steering. There’s no feel through the fat rim, it’s too light, too vague. The suspension has a good go at giving some discernible texture, but inside the graphics are as daft as the Mini’s, and there’s a similar sense this is a car more concerned with looking cool – an urban hot hatch.

It’s the brightest, newest, shiniest thing for us magpies, yet I watched as one person after another jumped excitedly in and zipped out of the pits, but once they returned, didn’t tend to go back to it. And it wasn’t because they were worried about charge. It coped all day. And so did we, spoiled by good weather and the stunning views Anglesey delivers like nowhere else. It grows dark, we retire to pit garages to sort winners from losers.

The Final Five

So 10 came, but only five can go through to round two. The first three choose themselves quickly and easily. The GR Yaris remains the hot hatch honey badger, even when fitted with an automatic gearbox. The Civic Type R is 9/10ths touring car and the most polished yet addictive car here, while the Focus ST sits somewhere between the two – an old school entertainer. Long may Ford support its survival.

I vote for the GTI Clubsport, but more go for the S3. Fair enough. It’s effective, well balanced and enjoyable in a way Audis so rarely are, even if it wears an RS3 price these days. And besides, having looked across the Menai Strait this morning, we need something with a fighting chance of pulling the rest of them out of a snow drift.

One of the EVs deserves to go through – the only one that genuinely engages us and shows a way forward for the breed. The Ioniq 5 N is a super SUV crammed into a hot hatch costume and given a dizzying price tag, but it provides answers to hot hatch questions that the Alpine and Cupra don’t. What are those questions? Find out tomorrow...