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2023 Performance Car of the Year

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- It makes this very pleasant snarl which I really do find enjoyable. The pace is pretty good. Why is it so fun to jump things? (upbeat instrumental music) Hey folks, welcome to Monticello Motor Club, one of my favorite tracks in America. We're on the north loop today for the 2022 Road and Track Performance Car of the Year test. We've got 11 cars here and while I am not making a video with every single one of them, I am making videos with the cars that I really haven't gotten to test on the track yet, and that is a significant number of them. So, three laps in the new WRX. The one with the funky body cladding, and here we go. 271 horsepower, 256 torque, flat 4, 3400 and change pounds, and we are going to head out on the track right now. Six-speed gear box, very nice and notchy, traction control fully off. And this car, the first thing I noticed coming over that negative G crest is how nicely it rotates on power. It does get the power down really well, and you can go onto the pedal very, very early. Contrast that with the fact that the brakes aren't really set up for track work. Travis did his three laps for the lap time, and when he started, the pedal was firm, and when he finished, the pedal was quite soft, where it has remained, despite multiple cool down laps. So the brakes in stock form, they hold up but the pedal gets very soft. Now look at this, here's the rally heritage. Yump, yump, and then an easy rotation when you lift to shift that weight. Oh there's red line, gotta go to fourth. Over this blind crest at the back, keeping it to the floorboard. Very nice. The power delivery is good. The engine, super smooth. The gear box is really direct and easy to get the power down. It's refined in here. It's quiet, it's civil even, but it doesn't feel like a track weapon out of the box. It feels like you might need to do a few things, make a few adjustments in order to bring out the best of the WRX on the track. That doesn't mean it's bad. I mean pads and fluid would go a long way here. I like that if you do a big hard and fast lift it will tuck the nose and rotate the tail. The weight transfer dynamics of the WRX are good, and although it's not as (Matt growls) grummy as before, it makes this very pleasant snarl, which I really do find enjoyable. Comes into the cabin. My favorite section, yump. With the WRX, I just love bringing out the rally heritage and yumping it over that section there. It's predictable as well. Predictability is a very good thing on track, doing what you want of it. I find myself having to brake a little early there in order to not overcook the second gear corner here. Brake pedal getting very soft now, but the steering retaining its sharpness. It's got an all-season tire on it. I want to say it's a Bridgestone and those are not getting overcooked. Those are remaining pretty consistent. Steering is pretty direct as well. I really like, I think my favorite thing about this so far is that I can make mid corner adjustments, move it a little closer to the apex by doing on and off throttle. Transferring that weight. That's my favorite thing so far about the WRX. The pace is pretty good. (Matt laughs) Why is it so fun to jump things? I think that's a rhetorical question. The engine's got the pace man. I think the brakes have had it though. Yeah, pads and fluid. For the track junkies out there, we're gonna need pads and fluid. But as I cross the line and get into my cool down lap, I like this car. I might not like the body cladding so much and it might be easy to overcook the brakes on track, but I like the inputs. I find the sound of the engine to be pleasant. I like the ability to handle uneven surfaces without upsetting the chassis. I like the balance at the limit. I like that I can go lift and tuck. It's very good when you can do that with a car, and the suspension has good body control but without being too stiff, it finds a nice balance there. Does a lot well. And I've got the air conditioning on and we've run the engine to red line at full throttle over and over for 10 minutes. Temperature totally seems unaffected. I like that. So, even though it might not look like it but this is a cool down lap. (Matt laughs) So, more to come from Road and Track Performance Car of the Year. So thank you all for watching, and we'll see you later.

Road & Track editor at large Matt Farah got behind the wheel of the 2022 Subaru WRX at our 2023 Performance Car of the Year test. Here's how it went.