MINI JCW GP | Test Drive

11 February 2021 Redazione News, Tested

The hands grip the steering wheel and look for the paddles calling the ideal gear and thus also taking advantage of the last of the 306 horses at disposal. An absurd power, a bit like fitting a nuclear reactor in your lawn mower. And it is here that the “less & more” implemented by MINI brings to the table that aspect that radically changes the driving experience.

Words by Alessandro Marrone / Photos by Daniél Rikkard

Bigger air intakes, carbon wheel arches that wraps around the new 18-inch wheels and contain the increase in width and a mammoth spoiler at the back. This is what the new MINI JCW GP is all about and it certainly does not intend to wink at your sister asking for a gentle drive to the city. Time for the third generation for this series produced in a limited edition – in this case we’re talking about 3,000 units, each of them numbered on the wheel arches, stylistically risky but fantastic – collecting the torch left by the most racing-focused Anglo-German hatchback seen for the first time in 2006 and then in 2013, with the model based on the R53 and R56. But this time things get even more serious, because the new GP borrows the 2-liter turbocharged 4-cylinder tested on the excellent BMW M135i and shoves it under that rounded bonnet that keeps the characteristic air intake from simple aesthetic function and with the inevitable weight loss imposed by the needs more devoted to a sporty driving, losing about 70 kg and stopping the scales at 1,255 kg.

The diet obviously includes removing the rear seats, which are replaced by a strut brace that does not act so much as a stiffener for the marble chassis, rather keeping your grocery in place as soon as you come back from the supermarket. The rear view camera and parking sensors are gone as well, because most of the time you’re about to spend with the new MINI GP will be on some curvy road (or a racetrack), demanding enough to put to the test the work done by the chaps at MINI. Do not think that the cockpit has become a place in which to live perpetually with the helmet on, since you get both sat-nav and a respectable audio system, while the sports seats enhance lateral restraint, but they are not at all extreme, at least not as much as the stiffness transmitted by what is happening below.

The connection with the wheels and therefore with the road is offered by a steering wheel with paddles specially created with 3D printing, through which to manage the only gearbox available here, an Aisin 8-speed automatic, slightly less incisive than a traditional double clutch, but precise enough to let your hands and much of your focus towards the asphalt snake that asks for nothing more than to be raped by the most powerful street-legal MINI ever produced in history, allowing only quick looks at the instruments enclosed in the digital display that characterizes the model.

The power of the 2-liter is 306 horsepower and the maximum torque is even more astounding, offering 450 Nm between 1,750 and 4,500 rpm, partially limiting the peak output in first and second gears so as not to unnecessarily waste power and allow traction – only up front – to direct the wheels and therefore the car in the desired direction. When it comes to pure acceleration we are dealing with an object that manages to overturn the concept of a pocket rocket, not only by removing weight, but by adding power, even too much you could argue. Reality is, however, that the MINI GP demonstrates an incredible desire to sprint away at the precise moment in which the throttle is pressed down, with the steering that never becomes overly nervous and a suspension setting that aptly knows one driving mode: GP.

The lack of intermediate settings is proof that this MINI is aimed at those who do not mind the compromises that must be made for taking home a limited edition with a price tag of almost € 50,000, which forgets the practicality of traditional hot-hatches, having only two seats and a look that would not pass unnoticed even in the middle of a supercars convoy. And if we are captured since childhood by those huge rear wings, that of the GP is no exception and in addition to carrying out the important task of stabilizing the flows, it confirms how much attention engineers have put in place to create a car that at the end of the day represents a weapon on both road and track, the first one being the scenario that I prefer to understand how much a sports car is really capable of surprising and at the same time satisfying in the real world context.

It’s finally time to leave the motorway, literally devoured thanks to an engine torque always ready to swoop down on speed limits and make our way to the Mottarone, a mountain road that is waiting for nothing but to test the dynamic qualities of a car conceived with only one goal: to go fast. As mentioned a few lines above, there is only one driving mode – GP – and the only things that can be changed concern the possibility of using the gearbox in Sport and the inhibition of traction control. For everything else, the MINI GP soon demonstrates the enormous differences compared to the more civilized John Cooper Works, with a sound unfortunately muffled by the presence of the APF, but with a nervousness that transmits driving sensations perfectly in line with the exterior look of a model that seems coming out of a pit lane and not your home’s garage.

You need 5.2 seconds to go from 0 to 100 kph, 17.2 to reach 200 per hour and then flat-out until you reach 265 kph. But we have learned that driving sensations are not a recipe based on numbers and never as in the case of this GP they do not show how hectic things actually are when you find yourself shot from one corner to another, with the hands that grip the steering wheel and look for the paddles calling the ideal gear and thus also taking advantage of the last of the 306 horses at disposal. An absurd power, if you think that we are talking about one of the smallest hatchback around, a bit like fitting a nuclear reactor in your lawn mower. And it is here that the “less & more” implemented by MINI brings to the table that aspect that radically changes the driving experience.

After some time behind the wheel, I realized that I hadn’t even come close to the mechanical limit of the car. And so you find yourself pushing harder, braking later and accelerating sooner, but above all keeping the gas down when cornering and noticing that the GP does not move, no matters the road, no matters the speed you’re in. Although it does not necessarily intend to break your back on the most ruined city streets, when you have the opportunity to increase the pace, you realize how it reaches the limit – or the instinct for self-preservation – of the driver first, rather than that of the car. In all this, kilometers are swallowed up with paces that would not struggle to put to shame a 600-hp supercar, where those usually boring stretches that combine two curves become so short that they don’t allow room for the slightest distraction.

The MINI GP mumbles less than it deserves and despite traction is only entrusted to the front wheels it bites the asphalt with a nastiness that consecrates it as the bad sister of the Cooper S JCW, ending up draining the tank and forcing you to deal with it like a bandit. It is one of the cars that most embodies the spirit of “drive it like you stole it”, a dip on the track that brings to everyday roads an unearthly precision, useful for halving the length of journeys and doubling the fun.

My come and go along the curves of the Mottarone continues, allowing time for Daniél to take pictures and for my eyes to observe how aesthetically it cries for more tarmac to bite, in a riot of mechanics and engineering that make it one of my favorite cars. That’s it. And this without representing an objective perfection, but after all, this is exactly what makes us fall in love with a car, right? In the same way, we find an answer to what we are looking for, in the way we feel pleasure driving and looking at it. For me, the new MINI GP represents the sum of the parts, a legacy handed down for generations and which recalls how those small bullets were able to conquer the Monte-Carlo Rally in the 1960s, despite the superior power of the competitors. In the same way, this object created to instill a bit of racing drama on the journey back home, manages to make every day at the wheel an opportunity to find yourself face to face with a car capable of surprising in any circumstance and that despite allows you to load pasta and milk into the large and unexpected luggage compartment, it represents the ultimate and maximum expression of performance and reminds us we are simple creatures and that for being happy we “just” need the right amount of horsepower under the hood and possibly a huge spoiler at the back.

MINI COOPER S JCW GP

Engine 4-cylinder Turbo, 1.998 cc Power 306 hp @ 5.000-6.250 rpm Torque 450 Nm @ 1.750-4.500 rpm

Traction Front Wheel Drive Transmission 8-Speed Automatic Gearbox Weight 1.255 kg

0-100 kph 5,2 sec Top Speed 265 kph Price € 45.900 Production 3.000 units