456bhp Renault Zoe e-sport driven flat out on track

The engineers provide a thorough briefing before allowing me onto the track. The car’s AP Racing brakes, they explain, are proper racing items and therefore unassisted, the electric power steering has a habit of cutting out without notice mid-corner and the chassis set-up is still a work in progress. Oh, and the batteries I’m sitting on might spontaneously combust if I forget to do a cool-down lap before returning to the pits.

Turning the e-sport on is relatively simple: you click the key, which is slotted into the centre of a big red kill switch between the seats, rotate two of the three rotary switches to engage drive and enable maximum power (the third switch controls brake bias and is left in the ‘safest’ setting), and release the handbrake. While stationary, the only sound is a highpitched whine like an old analogue TV, but much louder. Gently squeeze the accelerator, however, and this is accompanied by the even louder and slightly deeper whir of the motors, as well as a gearbox drone that’s deeper still and follows the pitch changes of the motors as the car’s speed builds.

The sound bears no comparison to a race-tuned internal combustion engine, but the relative lack of noise is forgotten when the responses of the drivetrain are first felt. The motors, while independent from each other, offer such instantaneous reactions that they both feel like they’re connected to the microscopic hairs of your big toe. The smallest of flexes is met with zero-delay power delivery, so you soon forget about the missing mechanical vibration through the airwaves and instead revel in the car’s hyper-reactivity.

At moderate pace, it feels razor-sharp, and prodding the throttle at 50mph, 60mph or even 70mph is met with a sudden rise in drivetrain tone as the road-legal Michelin Pilot Super Sport tyres, which are fitted to 20in wheels, break traction and over-rotate before biting into the track surface and propelling the car forward. This addictive, unbroken acceleration is comparable with only the most exotic of supercars.

The acceleration would also be the most likely culprit if the Zoe e-sport were to end up in the gravel trap or, worse, wrapped around the lone tree in the circuit’s infield. Applying power with the slightest of steering lock on makes the front tyres scream, pushing the nose wide and leaving me wide-eyed as I unwittingly angle the only Zoe e-sport in existence at a strip of grass and tyre wall. Reeling off lock and backing off the throttle prevents embarrassment. Once I recognise that the car has significantly more power than grip and that I have to be gentle with steering inputs while accelerating, the e-sport begins to work with me.

Fun as it all is, most challenging issue facing the Zoe e-sport – driving range – never escapes me. The engineers reckon that, flat out, the car will use about 10% battery per lap – which, with an out lap and cool-down lap, equates to just eight times round the circuit. A hot hatch has to be able to survive longer stints while having its neck wringed, but solving this range issue is no easy task. It's not like fitting larger batteries would be easy, due to the compact design of a hatchback and the weight implications.