Tuesday 2nd December 2014

Renaultsport Clio Cup race car: Driven

Can the roadgoing Clio Renaultsport learn a thing or two from its racer brother?

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There are puddles inside the pit garage and water is seeping through my racing pixie boots as I wait to post myself through the complicated lattice of roll cage and into the waiting Clio Cup race car. Outside the Brands Hatch Indy circuit is absolutely sodden and there are frequent red flags as track day participants pirouette into the gravel at Paddock or grind themselves along the length of the pit wall following Clearways tank slappers.

"Listen, can you give me a few tips..."

"If this was a race they'd have red flagged it," says 2009 Clio Cup champion Phil Glew, gamely strapping himself into the passenger seat next to me. Jolly good.

Tales from Dale of sliding on sand covered tracks, skin stinging from the desert sun between jumping in various customer spec GT3 race cars, seem literally a different world.

Different in climate and budget, perhaps. But perhaps not in spirit or intent.

Pays your money
Against the quarter of a million or so just to buy a factory GT3 car, and comparable six-figure sums to run it, 41,000 euros for a Clio Cup car sounds like a bit of a bargain. It's a proper racing car too with a 20-odd year competition pedigree, established series supporting the BTCC and assembled from components supplied by Sadev, Cosworth, AP, Brembo and more. Entry to the nine-round season in the Clio Cup costs £14,500 plus VAT, which sounds reasonable but will soon escalate. You could probably buy and run one for a season for less than the price of a GT3 car though, albeit sharing a grid with a bunch of young hotshoes developing tin-top race craft and hoping to attract the attention of a BTCC team. There'll be nothing 'gentlemanly' about the racing in this series, that's for sure.

Pre-season outing to show off product portfolio

Harris has already driven the Clio Cup for PH and rather enjoyed the experience. Given the conditions I'm a little nervous but having spent a decent amount of time on road and track in PH's Clio 200 Turbo long-term test car I'm keen to explore for myself where it could learn from its racing brother.

As in the road carthe fourth-generation Clio Cup racer brings with it a significant technological advance from what's gone before. Like the road car it gets a turbocharged engine and paddle-shifted gearbox for the first time; unlike the road car there's been no soul searching about whether or not these detract from the experience.

Skin deep
From the outside it might look pretty similar to the road car PH Fleet custodian Danny has brought along for comparison but the illusion doesn't last. Tubes for the roll cage go everywhere, completely blocking the view through the A-pillars and encasing you in metal. With the door nets in place and in the wings of the Sabelt seat in your peripheral vision your only view is directly ahead through the distant windscreen. No wonder the racers are always clattering into each other.

And this is how wet it was INSIDE the pit garage

Buttons are flicked, the engine fires up with an angry stuttering idle and I'm backed out of the garage, riding the vicious clutch and praying I don't make a tit of myself by stalling it. As we emerge the rain thunders on the bare metal roof and the full horror of the conditions is revealed. I lurch up the pitlane quietly congratulating myself for not spoiling Phil's first impressions of me by stalling. And then conk out as we hold at the pit exit. Merde.

The view of Paddock Hill as we emerge is basically like watching an onboard video of Brands Hatch on a smart phone with your arm outstretched as far as it will reach. The steering is light but direct but the brake pedal is rock solid. Through a combination of gestures - palm up for slow, jabbed finger for direction, pumped fist for power - Phil guides me through the odd wet line around Druids. As we exit the front end slides out towards the kerbs but Phil's fist is clenched towards the dash. Power? Really?

Stay off the kerbs, stay off the kerbs...

Really. The Sadev diff hooks up and the expected power understeer instead becomes an eerie tightening of line and decisive lunge for the downhill Graham Hill left-hander. Again Phil's clenched fist appears a lot earlier than expected and again the diff does the magic trick of pulling the car away from the outside kerbs.

Lights flash on the dash and it's up a gear with an exciting vindaloo burp from the engine. I keep it pinned and the shift-up lights reappear as the wheels spin up through a puddle before once again finding grip, the car not flinching from its line. With the 'Wet' map selected Phil tells me gearshifts are 'softer' to avoid destabilising jolts in power delivery but even so the Sadev box's decisive response to the paddles is one lesson the road car really could do with learning.

Distant cousins
For all the superficial similarities there really is little in common with the way the two drive though. Everything about the Cup car is counter intuitive, be that the lines we're using or the way it reacts to inputs. Even in the wet, one of the standout sensations is the ability to absolutely stand it on its nose with the fabulous unservoed pedal feel, feel the back end begin to rotate and then, as soon as it does, nail the throttle and haul out of the turn way faster than you'd have ever expected. A 3,000rpm plateau of torque between 2,500rpm and 5,500rpm gives you a huge reserve to lean on too, even if the 6,500rpm redline comes up very quickly.

Even in these conditions the Cup impresses

Oddly the one thing that doesn't feel that different from the standard car is the out and out performance. Sure, cornering grip and exit traction count for a lot in pace but with only 20hp and 22lb ft more in a straight line the Cup car doesn't feel dramatically fast. At a track day pace it's pure fun though. In a race against identical cars finding tenths here and there a proper test of ability, hence why it's such a recognised stepping stone for aspiring pros.

All of which offers a tempting glimpse of what a Clio 200 with a Megane Trophy-R style package of fancy dampers, a diff and a few other baubles might offer. It'd be expensive. But if it offers even a flavour of what the race car delivers while maintaining the daily usability we've enjoyed in the two-pedal, five-door Clio 200 it'd be a compelling package.

C'mon Renault. You know it makes sense!

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RENAULTSPORT CLIO 200 TURBO
Engine: 1,618cc 4-cyl turbo
Transmission: 6-speed automated sequential
Power (hp): 220@6,000rpm
Torque (lb ft): 199@2,500-5,500rpm
0-62mph:  N/A
Top speed: N/A
Weight: 1,080kg ('Unladen')
MPG: N/A
CO2: N/A
Price: 41,000 euros +VAT

[MustardCutter]

That really is gopping, what happened to Renault's sense of style...

That said the clio cup races I have seen in the past have always provided good entertainment, far more than the boring porsche series that also accompanies the BTCC.

Edited by MustardCutter on Tuesday 2nd December 16:38

[rallycross]

Horrible, looks like a Honda Jazz.

Clio Cup cars (and R5 Gt cup before) always looked right, like a proper racer, these just look too high, not sporty, (too many doors) looks like a shopping trolley not a racer.

[MagicalTrevor]

No video?

[Butter Face]

How did you possibly stall it?

[Dan Trent]

You use the clutch for pulling away. Or not, in my instance. Once under way it's redundant.

And the video? We had an awesome camera angle all set up in the car ... and the GoPro didn't switch on. Apologies for that!

Dan

[j_s14a]

[MagicalTrevor]

Dan Trent said:

You use the clutch for pulling away. Or not, in my instance. Once under way it's redundant.

And the video? We had an awesome camera angle all set up in the car ... and the GoPro didn't switch on. Apologies for that!

Dan

Oops!

[Dan Trent]

MagicalTrevor said:

Oops!

Obviously it was the most heroic lap of Brands Hatch Indy ever completed in the history of the circuit and, were it published, I'd have had a queue of Clio Cup teams offering me a seat for next year.

Sadly not this time though. Ho hum.

Dan

[daytona365]

A naive question maybe, but are these modern turbo units, giving great power from tiny displacements, as 'linear' in their delivery as we'd like ??...Just curious.

[martin elaman]

some of these race specials actually have you switch out the electric steering for hydraulic not sure if they do so with this car. Such a thing would be a great modification for a road car. m