Renault Megane RS 2018 UK first drive

The fourth-generation of Renault’s all-conquering hot hatchback, the Mégane RS, which has finally touched down in the UK in right-hand-drive form.

The Mégane RS brings with it the 1.8-litre turbo four-pot engine from the Alpine A110, with the wick turned up to 276bhp; a choice of seven-speed paddle shift and six-speed manual gearboxes; a segment-first active four-wheel steering system; and the familiar choice of standard Sport or bigger-rimmed, stiffer-sprung, slippy-diff-equipped Cup chassis options.

Considering the car’s established reputation for outstripping its rivals for driver appeal, big expectations surround the car’s introduction even without such an enticing list of mechanical ingredients to consider.

The car made a very impressive start indeed at Renault’s Portuguese press launch earlier this year; but, out there, journalists were restricted to testing Cup-specification cars on track and Sport-spec only on the road. So, for the stiffer of the two set-ups, this is still a bit of an acid test.

Introduce the new Mégane RS Cup to a bumpy British B-road and it wouldn’t take a cynic long to suggest why those press launch restrictions might have been in place.

Lordy, it’s firm-riding. Sufficiently aggressive in its damping, in fact, to feel brusque and quite irritable when you’re just bumbling around; and for the car’s body control to require big speeds on the road, and plenty of energy flowing upwards into the struts, before the ride even begins to loosen up and work over bumps. Ever drove a last-gen Mégane RS Trophy? The Cup isn’t far off that level of vertical tetchiness. Really.

There’s no slackening those dampers off, either; Dieppe’s choice for passive dampers and hydraulic bump stops denies you the opportunity to adjust the car’s comfort levels to suit your mood or journey. You can quickly warm to that old-school ‘like it or lump it’ lack of compromise, though. And you’ll certainly like the influence of the car’s firm set-up on its handling.

The steering is at once highly strung (particularly sensitive to road camber, reactive to bump steer and prone to a bit of traction-related directional interference, too) and also lacks much of the reassuring weight and feedback of the old Mégane’s rim. But the car carves its way around smooth, tight bends with such incisiveness, alacrity and balance that it takes a while to become accustomed to what it can actually do; and, by the way, that turns out to be quite a lot more on all three fronts than you imagine any front-driven hatchback might be capable of.