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Lost in the limelight of the LA Auto Show, journalists got their first crack at the Focus RS earlier this week at Willow Springs Raceway in California.
However, the catch was that journalists would not be driving, they would be riding shotgun.
Ford Performance Chief Engineer Jamal Hameedi said that there will be no dumbing down of the RS. Aside from the Recaro Shell seats in the EDM RS, the chassis tuning for America and Europe are identical.
The guys over at SVTPerformance said that during their laps with Ford's Jim Fritz they could feel the new found grip offered by the AWD system, but more importantly, as Fritz approached the limit they said they could feel the RS moving its torque around to keep pushing the edge farther away.
We'll leave the last words to Steve Turner from SVTPerformance: The more he pushed, the more tossable the Focus RS became. It glided through the tight corners, and if the tail twitched out a bit, it came back into line in an instant. As the track straightened it put down the power and pulled to the braking zone. The brakes were more than capable, and if there’s one word to describe this car from the passenger seat, it is “balance.”