The hot hatch arena just got tighter with the Renault Megane RS tossing its hat into the ring. Recently, we spotted one in the pits of Sepang International Circuit, and the timing was perfectly in line with Renault Malaysia’s promise of bringing in the hatch towards the end of the year.
Sitting under the hood is a 2-liter turbocharged inline- four that pumps out 250hp and 340Nm of torque to the front wheels. Connecting the engine to the front wheels is a six-speed manual transmission, which is the only tranny option on the table and,coincidently, just the way we like it.
There are two versions of the hatch, a Sport version and a more track-oriented Cup version. The Sport version, having to deal with everyday traffic, makes do with smaller anti-roll bars and tamer damping.
The Cup version however gets wilder damping to work alongside the beefier anti-roll bars while a mechanical LSD keeps the 19-inch wheels locked to the ground. Even the brakes on the Cup version are bigger Brembos for more bite.
Both versions utilise a Renaultsport Dynamic Management system to handle the chassis configurations. The system functions with three ESP modes, On, Sport and Off. A Renaultsport Monitor displays vehicle telemetry , keeping the driver in tune with the vehicle.
Like many hot hatches with too much force going through the front wheels, torque steer is an issue. To counter that, Renault threw in a revised Renault PerfoHub that keeps it going straight during flat out acceleration. The century mark is dealt with in 6.1-seconds.
It can’t be long before the official launching of the car locally and we will do our best to give you a driving impression. With a spec sheet like that, the spy shots might just be of the car in its natural home.
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id=ieooui></object> <style> st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } </style> <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]-->
Attachments
Last edited:
