By Bryan Redeker

Here are the observations from having the Fiesta on track;

The Fiesta is easy to drive! I actually found it relaxing to drive around the long sweepers, and thought it was easy to slalom. There is great visibility out the windshield, and you sit high enough to get a good look at the course.

Steering input is deadly accurate. There seemed to be no hesitation from the Fiesta when trying to change directions. Only when I way overcooked a corner did the front understeer. Brandon commented that my slalom was one of the better ones he has seen from me, as I usually stay far from the cones. The Fiesta was precise enough that I felt confident to hug the cones and not hit them.

Mostly neutral is how the car handled on course. The only understeer came from coming in too hot into a corner, and adding too much steering input due to a late turn-in. Some slight oversteer was possible with left-foot braking. The stability control allowed for enough rotation around the sweepers, but never enough to spin. Even with a decreasing-radius turn with a hard braking zone at the end, the Fiesta stayed very composed.

The Fiesta gives great feedback thru the seat, steering wheel, and brake pedal. Brandon thought the brakes were a little grabby for his liking, but I find his Focus to have brakes that stop about 20 feet after I think they should. I think his comments about the brakes are from being used to his Focus and his limited seat time in the Fiesta. I found the brakes to feel great, and only had the ABS come one once. I could stand on the brakes and feel any impending lock-up and adjust as needed. The pedal stayed firm and there were no signs of brake fade. The tires also did not protest the beating they were taking, and actually held up very well for a 2 driver car. The Mustang has overheated the edges of the front tires, but the Fiesta did not seem to suffer this issue. Sadly, the US cars will come with some craptastic all-season tires that serve no purpose. Mine will be replaced with some proper summer tires, and a set of snow tires for the winter.

While the traction control programming is not as intrusive as it was on the SVT Focus, it still needs to be turned off. There has to be a switch to deactivate the traction control when you don’t want it. The system did allow for some wheel spin at launch, but it did seem to stop the engine from making power when exiting corners. The engine fell on its face, and then came back to life. My SVT Focus does the same thing with traction control left on, but that is so sensitive that it will do it if there is a heavy dew on the ground. The Fiesta is not that bad, but still needs to have an on/off switch on the dash.

A more precise gate for the shifter is really needed! For one very slow section of the course, the engine speed in second gear dropped very low. Once the engine dropped out of the optimal rev band, it became very sluggish. The only way to avoid that was to shift into 1^st gear to keep the revs up and power out of the slow part of the track. Since the gates are so vague, I did not dare shift into 1^st when I needed to. My fear is that I would have ended up in 3^rd. Thankfully, the course did not require a fast shift to 3^rd, as that has been proved to be a problem. A quick shift into third can leave you in 1^st or 5^th. Running the course in 2^nd gear cost us many seconds in the slow parts of the track, and the 1.6L doesn’t have enough low end torque to muscle out of the slow parts. My Mustang was great in 2^nd gear since it produces a great deal of torque at a very low rpm. As much as it kills me to say this, a “DSG” style transmission may have helped the Fiesta switch gears faster, but many autocrossers have noted that the paddles are rarely in the right spot to shift around corners. I would rather keep the manual with a clutch; just give me a more precise gate.

Having a knob to adjust the seat back was a nice feature so I could give the backrest a small adjustment. For track use, I usually move the seat a little bit forward, and move the back rest a little bit more vertical. The nice thing about the knob on the Fiesta seat is that I could give it a small turn and find a great spot for the backrest. After I was done autocrossing, a small turn back to the street position and move the seat a notch back. Everything is right back to where I want it to be.

For a small car that sits very high, there was little body roll while going around corners. The car stayed very composed and flat around the course, and did not pitch fore-aft with the application of brakes or throttle. The suspension on the Fiesta is one of its strong points, and really shows that the Ford engineers have done their homework.