Fiesta ST at Lommel: Time For Tea?

Reports from the launch are positively effervescent - and in this video, the new fast Fiesta looks a right hoot

Our man Dom Holtam’s currently over in the South of France being given the chance to thrash the new Fiesta ST senseless around the hills above Nice. Tough gig, eh? The good news is that the noises coming back from Provence sound good: the new Fiesta, it seems, is a bit of alright. We’ll have a full road test coming to you soon, but for now, to get you in the mood, here's a video Ford's just released of test driver David Put hooning the new ST around its proving ground at Lommel.

"Yes, I'll take two boxes of oversteer, please..."

It isn’t easy to make a wet weekday afternoon in Belgium look exciting, but the ST does. Bounding over the humps and twists of the this cracking track, it looks every bit the classic hot hatch – an impression that’s confirmed every time Put coaxes the little Fezzie into another bout of lurid, rear-wheel-cocked lift-off oversteer. Ford’s assertion that it’s only too happy to engineer its cars to be a little more tail-happy these days is strongly evident here, then. It sounds good, too, thanks no doubt to the sound symposer Ford debuted on the Focus ST that does a grand job of conveying some of the engine’s induction noise into the cabin.

So while Dom brings back our verdict on the new car, the rest of us are sitting here salivating at the prospect of getting a go back here in the UK. This video might be a bit of PR hype building, but we’ll confess, it’s done its job well.