Hyundai i30 N Set Loose at the Nurburgring, Beats the Mighty Ford Focus RS

SportAuto put Christian Gebhardt in the driver’s seat of the i30 N Performance, which was then driven as fast as possible on the German racetrack, in the Nordschleife configuration. When the imaginary chequered flag dropped, it posted a lap time of 8 minutes and 05.19 seconds.

That’s not exactly record-breaking, because it’s the Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series that beat every other production car out there, so it still holds the crown, with 6:43.62. It’s followed by the Lamborghini Aventador SVJ, which did it in 6:44.97.

Taking a closer look on FastestLaps reveals that the i30 N actually beat the all-wheel drive Ford Focus RS, part of the previous generation, which did 8:06.00 with Gebhardt behind the wheel. It was also faster than the 987-generation of the Porsche Cayman S, which posted a lap time identical to that of the Blue Oval’s hot hatch. Further up the chart sit the BMW M3 E92 and Ferrari 575M Maranello, with 8:05.00, and the MINI JCW GP and old Mercedes-AMG A 45, which completed the course in 8:04.00 each, identical to the Lamborghini Diablo GT, and VW Golf R Mk7.

With the Honda Civic Type R, Renault Megane RS, Ford Focus ST, and Volkswagen Golf GTI in its sights, the Hyundai i30 N Performance uses a 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine. The turbo’d mill pumps out 280 ps (276 hp / 206 kW) and 392 Nm (289 lb-ft) of torque in the facelifted iteration, a 5 ps (5 hp / 4 kW) and 39 Nm (29 lb-ft) improvement over its predecessor. As a result, at 5.9 seconds with the auto ‘box, it is 0.2 seconds faster to 100 kph (62 mph) from a standstill and still maxes out at 250 kph (155 mph).