As a driver for Volkswagen’s erstwhile Rallycross team and a two-time Formula Drift champion, it’s safe to say that Tanner Foust knows his way around a car. And the driver says he’s falling in love with the Mk8 Golf R.
Given the keys to the 2022 Golf GTI and Golf R as well as free reign over the Streets of Willow track, Foust makes good use of the situation to have a little fun and sell the cars in this Volkswagen-produced video.
Taking the wheel of the GTI first, Foust says that he’s impressed with how much grip the car can get out of the corners despite sending its power only to the front wheels.
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“Sometimes I’ll come into a turn mid-corner and add just a little too much steering right at the apex and sure enough the nose tucks in almost like magic,” says Foust. “But all it’s doing is slowing down that inside front tire, giving that front end of the car as much chance of maintaining grip as possible. It just does it effortlessly, hardly ever feeling the front tires spin even with stability traction control off.”
But it’s the manual Golf R that really steals the driver’s heart as he manages some impressive four-wheel drifts through the corners.
“First thing you notice is when you exit the corner, you don’t have to use the steering wheel nearly as much,” says Foust. “You get on the throttle and that actually does a lot of the turning of the car.”
As ever, though, it’s the Mk8 Golf’s humble appearances and comfortable interior, contrasted against its impressive performance that really impresses Foust.
Despite looking comfortable and sensible, when “you listen to the rawness of the exhaust and you get on the gas a little earlier than you should, and instead of getting understeer out of the corner, you actually get a little hint of oversteer, that torque-vectoring absolutely works this car on the exit of a corner,” says Foust. “This has to be the most fun hot hatch I’ve ever driven.”