SEAT Leon ST Cupra 300

A cut corner leads to a minor wobble, and another Cupra demonstrates why the Sub8 pack needs to make a return

THIS MONTH SAW MORE CHASE car/photographic support duties for the swift and practical Leon. It was north Wales this time, for the cover shoot for the second issue of Enzo magazine (on sale October 26, kids!), and I apologise for the lack of photos of the SEAT hobnobbing with the wonderful gathering of V8 Ferraris we had there, from 308 to 488, but it absolutely lashed it down for two days.

Of course, on the drive home, not an hour from where we’d been shooting, the roads were dry and inviting. I was leading the way in the 488 GTB and trying not to get too carried away so photographer Malcolm Griffiths and hired help Tim Milne behind in the SEAT didn’t lose touch.

Almost inevitably, at one point I looked in the rear-view mirror and the SEAT wasn’t there. So I slowed down. Still no sign. So I stopped. For a couple of minutes. And then the SEAT appeared, with decent speed, so we carried on. Turns out Tim had missed one of Malcy’s pace notes: ‘easy over crest, don’t cut’. The nearside front had dropped into a hollow, there was a big bang and the resulting wobble suggested a puncture. However, the tyre looked good and it turned out to be a sod of mud clinging to the inside of the rim. With that removed, the death wobble went.

I think, though, that there is some legacy of that incident. Above 55mph there’s a very slight but perceivable out-of-balance feel through the steering wheel. I don’t think it’s a lost balance weight because the sensation doesn’t increase with speed. A spot of driveway investigation is required. Unrelated, I think, is a slight moan when reversing on lock. It sounds like it’s from the rear, like a handbrake shoe inside one of the rear discs isn’t fully releasing.

I’ve always admired our Leon estate’s togetherness on the road, so I was expecting the three-door, front-drive 300 to be a tidy, fun package – especially as its 280 predecessor, in Ultimate Sub8 form, wowed me and nipped at the heels of supercars on ecoty 2015 ( evo 216). I drove said 300 for last month’s Supertest after lapping the new Civic Type R and Focus RS. The Sub8 would have given them a hard time, but without that pack (lightweight wheels, larger brakes, some weight loss and, optionally, Cup 2 tyres) the Leon felt dreadfully ordinary, lacking in poise and grip so that it felt like an overpowered base model. I wasn’t expecting that. Not at all. Seems a duff decision that you can’t order the Sub8 pack anymore. Dateacquired May 2017 Totalmileage 9021 Mileagethismonth 2480 Coststhismonth £0 mpgthismonth 32.2