[Dave-ROR]

Originally Posted by Tristor

There's a Focus RS that goes to my local track. The guy that owns it is admittedly a much better driver than I am. I've ridden with him, and he knows that car intimately, he's exceptionally good at getting it to rotate to apex on command without overdoing it, something I'm still working on myself. Despite this, when we're on track together he's constantly ending up giving me the point bys. Neither of us is really "racing", since we're just getting seat time on an open day, but I consistently set better laptimes than he does, despite my admission that he's a better driver and the fact he's on stickier tires. I was out there on Michelin PS4S with a few heat cycles, and he was out there on Toyo R888Rs.

I honestly think the way power delivery works in the Focus RS, the higher CoG, and the much worse seats all play a part in how it creates driver confidence and what results it generates on track. It's not even a question for me, I'd take a BRZ w/ good tires and brakes over a Focus RS any day.

You are either selling yourself short or far overselling his talent.

I've driven both on track multiple times and modified BRZs (mine and @Opie car) haven't beaten my laptimes in my old stock (I don't count brake pads and fluid as mods and everything I track has that) Focus RS.

And it's not like a .5 second different.. it's a 5-6 second difference a lap at Sebring.

Just for reference sebring laptimes in my cars are consistently:
Camaro (stock): 2:26-2:27
Focus RS (stock): 2:34-2:35
Opie's BRZ (h/e/tune tarmac 2 re71r): 2:40 (I did 2:39s with my old BRZ, haven't run the new one yet)
Integra Type-R (i/h/e and 2 way coilovers): 2:39

Now perhaps on a very tight short technical track the weight of the RS will allow the BRZ to be right there with it, but on a normal track I just don't see that happening.

I'm not putting the FT86 down, but they just don't have the power to compete with the more powerful cars. They make up time under braking and, to an extent, corner speeds although I don't recall them having higher much higher corner speeds than the Focus. I also haven't looked at the Solo data from the Focus in about 2 years to remember the corner speeds/etc.