‘I tell them to just try it for an hour and see what they think then.’ More impressive still is that despite its apex-hungry response on track, the Ford also feels dead-set and stable in a straight line. ‘Sometimes people find it so fast that at first they get spooked,’ Put says. The Fiesta’s ultra-fast 12:1 steering ratio makes total sense here. You can see how its corners have directly informed the way the Fiesta handles, particularly in the constant-radius curves designed to fine-tune how the car reacts if you shut the throttle or alter your line mid-bend. If the Fiesta had a higher price, Put’s personal wishlist would be bigger brakes for track work and adaptive dampers for the best of both worlds, ride quality and responsive handling.ĭavid and I swap seats so I can see how it feels around Lommel’s Route 7, a track so exciting its name could be mentioned in the same breath as the Nürburgring and Route Napoleon. The complex includes a replica of bumpy, scarred roads near Ford’s Essex base, and as Put pilots the Fiesta over it he explains that this road was one of the key tests. Those dampers were signed-off partially in real life in Wales – ‘There’s nowhere like it,’ says Put – and also on replica UK roads in Lommel. I think we must have changed pretty much every parameter possible in the dampers.’ ‘We went through God knows how many damper settings. Put was one of the ST’s main dynamics engineers. It’s here that the Fiesta’s sparkling chassis was developed, and this visit is a rare chance to bring it back to the place where it learnt everything it knows. Access is rarely granted to people outside the company, and it’s unusual for Ford to allow us to drive our long-term-test Fiesta ST through Lommel’s heftily padlocked gates. Ford’s Lommel proving ground in rural Belgium is a sort of Area 51 for car development, a complex of test circuits, steering pads and punishingly bumpy durability test zones, ringed by a banked speed bowl and hidden from prying eyes by thick forest.
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