Mini Countryman JCW - long-term review

The Countryman JCW is the fastest, most powerful production Mini available today. As well as the hugest. And heaviest. It’s therefore a fairly typical sports SUV so instead of considering its puzzling blend of size and speed a nonsense, you could consider it a cut price Cayenne or a budget Urus.

We’re at Dunsfold where the Hennessey Venom F5 is currently failing to proceed. Stig is twiddling what passes for his thumbs, so I point him in the direction of my JCW, attach the Racelogic VBox and let nature take its course. 1min 32.2secs later he’s back. The JCW has hit a peak speed of 111.5mph before Second To Last and generated an absolute peak of 1.36g in Follow Through.

From my vantage point at the start line it looked hoppy and stiff, appeared to resist roll pretty well and keep control of itself. All traits it has in regular road use. The brakes survived enough for me to jump in alongside Stig for another lap. The gearbox is the thing that can’t keep up.

Downshifts are late and slow, upshifts (using the manual paddles) are hard to predict because the rev counter is over in the middle of the dash and part of a bewildering array of screen data. The gearbox - a seven-speed automatic, not a twin clutch - is best shoved in Sport mode and left to make its own decisions.

Otherwise it’s performed gamely. It didn’t fall to bits at the first sight of Hammerhead, and used in extremis there’s less torque steer because more is being fed to the rear wheels. On the road, going for a swift exit off a slow roundabout, the steering wheel tugs and heaves. Makes it tricky to choose a smooth line.

Ironically, the ALL4 doesn’t really like using all four wheels. It favours the fronts, because it makes the JCW feel eager and mischievous.

You probably know Dunsfold lap times well enough to know that a 1min 32.2sec lap isn’t a game changer. And you’re right - in fact it’s exactly the same time posted by the very first Ford Focus RS almost a quarter of a century ago. Another car that knew all about torque steer. The Mazda 6 MPS (remember that?) also hit the same mark.

But this is the fastest Mini to have ever gone round Dunsfold. It wouldn’t be if we’d ever bothered to lap one of the Mini GPs, but unfortunately the closest we have ever got is a Mini Cooper S Works which posted a 1min 34.2sec lap back in Series 5. And it’s also the fastest in a straight line. Using launch control (once we’d found it in the depths of a menu) 0-60mph took 5.47secs.

But what I mainly thought through all of this was ‘imagine what it would be like if this engine and 4WD system was in a proper Mini’. You know, a three-door hatch, low to the ground and hundreds of kilos lighter. I’d accept 4WD because it would be like a cut price Audi RS3. And I’d have that over an Urus any day of the week.