HANDLING
Want to snif out the dynamic duds? Easy! Just take your eight contenders to a track and let Stig drive them the only way he knows how
We at TopGear are not imbeciles. Well, not all the time. We realise that the average SUV owner is more likely to enjoy cheese-grating their own fngers than they are to take their sports utility vehicle to a racetrack and give it a good thrashing. Even if they did, they wouldn’t be able to drive it up to and beyond the limit like our friend here, The Stig. But there is a purpose to setting banzai lap times, other than marvelling at how quickly Stig can fambé the brakes on a 2.2-tonne Discovery.
Speed around a track points towards grip (something you’ll appreciate on a wet Tuesday when you’re late to pick the kids up), predictable steering, a punchy engine in tune with its gearbox and brakes you can rely on when some dozy twit more interested in WhatsApp than the road pulls out in front of you. Oh, and beasting cars that weren’t necessarily designed for such a thing is an inordinate amount of fun.
Let’s start with the Dacia Duster, which comes out fghting with the most hi-po engine at its disposal and four-wheel drive. Unfortunately, this is a 1.2-litre turbo producing just 123bhp, but it ups the sporting ante with a six-speed manual. Porsche 911R, eat your heart out. Turns out there’s not a bad chassis under there, just not enough power for it to shine. Stig wrings the Duster dry, but still posts the slowest time of the day.
Would you be surprised if I told you that the Skoda Kodiaq is a dynamic revelation? Good, because it isn’t, it’s as sensible as its sensible-pants styling suggests. Issues include a DSG gearbox that, without paddles behind the wheel, is irritatingly slow to react to prods of the gearlever in manual mode, a chassis that understeers like a cruise ship and a distinct lack of lift-of oversteer. These are words I never thought I’d be required to type.
Where the Duster is merely underpowered, and the Kodiaq is unable to keep its mass in check, the front-wheeldrive Peugeot 3008 is just a big, fat killjoy. The 129bhp three-cylinder turbo engine is actually rather perky, but its best eforts to bring some sparkle to proceedings are crushed
“The Discovery is the equivalent of a porky St Bernard digging its paws in”
by the over-intrusive safety systems that shut you down just as things start to get interesting. A quicker lap time than the Duster and Kodiaq, but a moral victory for the Dacia at the Haas/Sauber end of the grid.
If there’s one car that isn’t remotely interested in such childish pursuits, it’s the Discovery. The equivalent of a porky St Bernard digging its paws in to avoid being dragged of to doggy WeightWatchers, it does everything to avoid its Stigbased workout – including setting fre to its own brakes after a single lap. To be fair, it’s a whale out of water, listing alarmingly in quick corners, understeering heroically at any opportunity and refusing to hang onto your chosen gear at high revs, even in Manual and Sport mode. Sorry, Disco, you’ll have your moment in a few pages’ time.
And then the Stelvio trundles up to the line and proves that it is possible for an SUV to have a sense of humour. The engine, a 207bhp 2.2-litre 4cyl turbodiesel, isn’t exactly Italian exotica, but it’s enough to reveal the best chassis here, and earns it a bonus point. The brakes are strong, and while the steering doesn’t chatter with feedback, it’s Ferrari-quick and the front end is pointy enough to keep up. In fact, the front tyres dig in so hard it cocks a rear tyre in the tighter stuf and lets the rear end rotate around you when you lift of. You can’t turn the traction of fully, which is a drag, but the fact that it didn’t spoil things is a compliment of the highest order.
The F-Pace was quicker thanks to its two-cylinder and 89bhp advantage, but didn’t feel as at home on the track as the Alfa. There are fickers of fnesse: a satisfying RWD feel past the apex, and you can tighten your line with a well-timed lift, but its brakes were toast after two laps.
Speaking of fnesse, the Bentayga diesel is about as subtle as Boris Johnson, but bullies its way around the track to devastating efect. Front and centre is the engine – a 429bhp, 4.0-litre V8 turbodiesel – but even that sort of brute force can’t disguise that it, too, wasn’t built for this sort of undignifed punishment.
Whereas the Audi SQ7 – a car with the same triplecharged diesel engine as the Bentayga (with an electrically driven compressor that builds boost before the main turbos fll their lungs) – soaks it up and begs for more. In places where the Bentayga understeers, the Audi stays locked to the road and feels faster everywhere – a 176kg weight advantage tends to do that. The steering, brakes, throttle, everything is on espresso-fuelled alert, and the way the 48v active roll control keeps such a lump so fat in the corners is beyond comprehension. It’s the only car here that can build and carry the sort of speeds that make your eyes widen and your palms moisten. A speed machine with space for seven – frst blood to the SQ7.