Col de la Bonette

A cyclists’ favourite, it’s tight, twisty and has little room for error. Perfect hot hatch territory?

PEAK 2: FRANCE

Often the approach roads are better than the money-shot mountain roads, the Stelvio Pass being a prime example. Once we arrive on the tight, blind and strangely busy Bonette, the same appears to ring true. It’s a road for stopping and taking in the views – and reaching Europe’s third-highest piece of tarmac – not driving like a modern-day McRae.

Lee’s delighted, of course, and the area’s glorious tranquillity is soon punctuated by the clicks and beeps of drone assembly. Our second peak is just 27m off our first and yet it feels a world away, a mix of luscious greens, oranges and yellows. If I had watercolours I’d whip them out and paint while Lee takes his pictures.

We’re barely halfway up, mind, and as we ascend further, seeking out the plaque that marks Bonette’s peak, the colours get greyer and bleaker until we’re surrounded by a panorama of mountain tops, each doing its best impression of the Toblerone logo. Rock fall clothes the road, which has narrowed to a car’s width with a sheer and quite lengthy plummet to its right. Fall off

and I’m pretty sure I’ll have time to call Hyundai and apologise before we touch the bottom.

I wouldn’t want anything bigger or more exotic than our hot hatch up here, but don’t think that means it’s low on drama. The man who runs Hyundai’s N division used to run BMW’s M division, and the way he’s made a front-wheel-drive hatchback drive with a similar aggression to a rear-wheel-drive saloon ought not to be surprising. But it’s gob-smacking. A lazy cliché would be to compare it to a Nineties French hot hatch, except I own one of those, and it feels nowhere near as frisky as an i30N with the stability control turned off.

We carefully descend back down before reaching the D900B, which might be my new favourite road. Night has fallen in Monte Carlo rally territory and the i30N’s lights are punching through the dark like a WRC car’s lamp pod (well, in my head). Its speed and grip levels appear to have been benchmarked on squeezing out as much performance as you dare on this road, and I could stay here all night. As the image below attests, climbing Europe’s highest roads possess outrageously dramatic scenery. But you’ll have an even better time approaching and leaving them.