Ford Focus ST ride & handling

The Focus ST chassis is excellent, allowing the hot hatch to excel in handling dynamism and truly entertain. 

Its weighty, keenly paced steering, its incisive and balanced handling and its body control at speed remain as compelling as anything you might access at the more affordable end of the full-size hot hatch market - and they’re more than a match for most rivals. 

This is a car that you can flick around roundabouts so intuitively and immediately, with a flash of your wrists and a couple of well-timed pedal inputs. Even in automatic form, it has a grip level of real mid-corner tenacity and plenty of traction when you’re making a speedy exit from a tighter bend. 

The Edition adds tenacity to inspire confidence in corners. On the extra grippy Pirelli P Zero Corsa tyres fitted to our test car, you exit each corner grinning ear-to-ear.

There are some compromises for these enhancements. The Edition’s secondary ride isn’t a strong point, with jolts and vibrations making their way into the cabin on most road surfaces. There's also a large amount of road noise.

Thanks to supportive sports seats, though, it’s not entirely uncomfortable.