Renault star takes a victory lap

Mark Webber puts the Megane RS 250 hatchback through its paces at Barbagallo Raceway in Perth. Photo / Supplied

Renault celebrated an Australian award for its go-fast Megane RS 250 hatchback by putting Formula One ace Mark Webber in the driving seat at Perth's first Festival of Speed.

Australian Webber was showing off his Red Bull RB6 racer at the inaugural event when he jumped behind the wheel of the RS 250 to give VIPs a blast around the circuit.

Australian motoring publication Drive had just named the new RS 250 its sub-A$60,000 Performance Car of the Year for 2010, beating the highly rated Ford Focus RS and Volkswagen GTi.

The Renault RS 250 will arrive in New Zealand in February/March. No word on price here yet.

More than 20,000 people packed the new Barbagallo Raceway to watch Webber and Australia's rising Formula One star Daniel Ricciardo complete the first laps by a Formula One car at the track for almost 50 years.

Also on hand was 1980 Formula One champion Alan Jones, introducing his own supercar, while Geoff Brabham, winner of Le Mans and Bathurst, represented his father, Sir Jack Brabham, a triple world champion.

Webber put in more than 25 hot laps in the Renault Sport 250 using the actual car Drive had used in the voting. Renault Australia shipped the car from Drive's Sydney office to Perth, adding only some Renault Sport decals.

"Last time I raced at this track I was 17," Webber said. "It hasn't changed much.

"There's a good atmosphere and lots of people and lots of cars," he said. "It's nice for me to drive around and wave to the fans and say hello."

Renault Australia managing director Justin Hocevar was on hand to watch Webber send the front-drive hatch around Barbagallo's tight and twisting turns. "The car looked very impressive, cornering flat and obviously generating high levels of grip," said Hocevar. "It's probably a lot more comfortable than his Formula One car, too.

"Our Renault Sport 250 was very well received by the crowd. There were a lot of people coming up to look at it who had not seen one before.

"Having it parked next to the Formula One car made the link between Renault Formula One power and our road cars a lot more visible."

The Festival of Speed featured more than 14 different types of motorsport on the one circuit, on the one day.

The event was billed as Perth's premium adrenalin-charged annual motoring event with the largest collection of cars and bikes ever, including Formula One, V8 Supercars, and rally cars. The organisers plan to run the event annually as a Southern Hemisphere alternative to Britain's Goodwood Festival of Speed.

The RS 250 is powered by a Euro-5-compliant 2-litre four-cylinder turbocharged engine delivering 184kW at 5500rpm and peak torque of 340Nm from 3000rpm. Around 80 per cent of the 340Nm is available from 1900rpm, says Renault.

The new engine's increase in power and torque over the outgoing RS model's 170kW 2-litre unit is largely the result of a reworked turbocharger, continuously variable intake valve timing, and revised fuel-injection mapping.

More than 25 per cent of the engine's components are new, says Renault, including intake ports, reinforced pistons and conrods, intercoolers, sodium-cooled valves and piston ruing carriers.

Work has also gone into the acoustics of the engine to produce a telltale sporty pitch audible inside the cabin under acceleration.

The RS 250 engine drives the front wheels through a six-speed manual gearbox with revised ratios and increased shift precision to suit the engine's new power band, says the carmaker.

The hot hatch sprints from zero to 100km/h in a claimed 6.1s. Renault claims combined fuel usage of 8.7 litres/100km. The RS 250 will be preceded by a new range of Renault models, due later next month.