Volkswagen's recent endeavors on the Nurburgring with their Golf GTI Clubsport S have probably motivated a few people at RenaultSport.
As you probably know by now if you live in Europe, Renault has launched the fourth generation of the Megane last year, and it will get a performance version in 2017. It will be dubbed Renault Megane RS, and it is expected to keep its front-wheel-drive configuration.
Most likely, its market launch will happen in the second part of next year, so you will have to wait a few more months until the specifications of the car will be released.
Until then, Volkswagen has published a video depicting a record run on the Nurburgring. The stripped-out Golf GTI Clubsport S managed to beat its previous time by two seconds, and it all happened this October. The Germans have a video to prove their feat.
Renault’s previous Megane RS used to be the king of the Nurburgring when front-wheel-drive was concerned, but that happened in 2014. At that time, Renault recaptured the record for FWD cars with the Megane 275 Trophy-R. It was eventually defeated by the Honda Civic Type R, which was surpassed by the Golf GTI Clubsport S mentioned above.
The engineers at RenaultSport are probably furious by now, but the team is hard at work with the development of the next Megane RS. Most likely, the pre-production car is already ready, and the tests being conducted in the past few months have been done to ensure that everything works perfectly.
However, the recent accomplishments of Volkswagen’s sporty front-wheel-drive hot hatch have not gone unnoticed at Renault, which could lead to a hotter Megane RS that is on the development table.
Most likely, Renault will not launch the hotter version of the Megane RS at the same time as the regular model. Instead, the same strategy as with the third-generation model might be applied, which means that you could see a Nurburgring front-wheel-drive record contender from Renault about two or three years after the next Megane RS is launched.
Sebastian's love for cars began at a young age. Little did he know that a career would emerge from this passion (and that it would not, sadly, involve being a professional racecar driver). In over fourteen years, he got behind the wheel of several hundred vehicles and in the offices of the most important car publications in his homeland. Full profile
Would you like AUTOEVOLUTION to send you notifications?
Google News