Anyone who’s watched a New York Jets game this year will instantly understand the vibe. An aging, once superstar quarterback, still retaining some skill and drive but not like in his heyday, battles for relevance in a league that seems to be passing him by. His legendary past performance now looks positively pedestrian when compared to the hot young crop …
Taking It to the Track
Our previous encounter with a more pedestrian WRX on track left us frustrated. A once scrappy little performance car had turned into a front-heavy, tippy tire grinder. This tS package makes huge, welcome strides toward rectifying those shortcomings and turns the WRX into a far more track-capable partner.
The WRX tS lags a bit behind its market competitors at our official test track, the Florida International Rally & Motorsport Park, but most of that deficit, as we alluded to earlier, comes due to the fact that the WRX offers less power than any of its contemporaries.
We lined up the VBox data traces from the WRX tS with its AWD competitor, the Toyota GR Corolla, and spotted a quick trend: The 271-horsepower WRX gets dog-walked by the 301-horsepower GR Corolla in every acceleration zone. Predictable, but real.
1. The Subaru WRX tS (red trace) can nearly match the Toyota GR Corolla (blue trace) in third-gear acceleration, but as soon as the Subaru shifts to fourth, the thrust falls off dramatically. 2. Fortunately, the Subaru’s brakes are world-class, easily outperforming those found on the GR Corolla. 3. The entry to Turn 8 represents a nice win for the Subaru’s predictable chassis and communicative steering. It dives into the corner faster than the GR Corolla and easily maintains speed through the middle of the long left-hander. Unfortunately, the speed overwhelms that grip late in the corner at the tricky off-camber exit. The Toyota’s superior roadholding gives it the edge here. At the end of the lap, the GR Corolla has a 2-second advantage.
The Toyota only enjoys a real edge in one corner, the FIRM’s fast Turn 4 right-hand kink, but in every acceleration zone, the speed trace of the GR Corolla climbs consistently faster and higher than the WRX’s. At the end of the fastest straight, which follows a corner that the WRX and GR Corolla exited at nearly identical speeds, the Toyota held a near 3 mph advantage into the braking zone.
The Subaru does have great brakes, though–and not just according to our foot; the VBox agrees. Braking into Turn 5, the Subaru decelerates at a greater rate than the Toyota and touches a max of 1.03g entering that section.
The Subaru also shows surprising agility, particularly in the entry to the FIRM’s Turn 8, which is a great place to see how well a car does multiple things at once. The Subaru enters the corner 3 mph faster than the Toyota and doesn’t have the telltale speed dip of a car that understeers on entry–like the GR Corolla does. Speed through the long corner is also on par with the Corolla, showing solid roadholding even in a turn with variable road camber.
Overall, the latest WRX makes for a competent track companion, with good feedback and good drivability, but it’s hampered mostly by a lack of power compared to cars it will clearly be cross-shopped against. An exceptional set of brakes makes for confidence in not just stopping but in corner entry, where the release and modulation pays off in lots of entry stability.
The WRX’s 1:23.65-second lap time lags behind the rest of the usual suspects in the class. The latest Honda Civic Type R, for example, leads the segment down in the 1:20s. The WRX tS has the chassis to compete in the class but simply lacks the thrust.
Photography Credit: Paris Van Gorder
So, the real question here: Who is this car for? It won’t outlap its competition, and it doesn’t feel as high-end as the latest Honda and Acura offerings.
How about this: Perhaps the WRX is as much of a cult object as it is a market object. For years it defined the small performance segment for a lot of folks who wanted an alternative to the mainstream options from Honda. Today, though, maybe it’s a way to recapture some of the magic that’s been waning over the past few years.
