Well, the TCR certainly delivers a dose more straight-line pace than the car on which it was based – though not a huge one. There is only 7lb ft of extra torque on offer here than in a GTI Performance, which probably isn’t enough to notice in terms of mid-range thrust – although the TCR doesn’t feel short on the stuff.

Where the car really delivers on its makeover is at high revs, and particularly so over the last 1500rpm of the operating rev range, when that freed-up 2.0-litre pulls with notably greater enthusiasm and venom than GTI drivers will be used to. The engine also retains a nicely balanced broad spread of potency, and has better low-range response than the old Clubsport series cars thanks to better ECU mapping. It may not quite have the measure of absolutely every engine of its kind, but the TCR’s motor effectively banishes any semblance of meekness from the GTI’s character. If you want a really fast and exciting hot hatchback, this engine just about puts the Golf GTI back in the conversation.

Does the TCR drive better than every other hot Golf?

Whether the TCR’s ride and handling keep it in that conversation, however, is unexpectedly open to question. From an engineering team that could so easily have simply duplicated the axles of the superb GTI Clubsport S here, but for some reason chose not to, that comes as a surprise to say the least. The TCR is still a fine hot hatchback and a compelling driver’s car, but one that doesn’t have the otherworldly body control and wheel dexterity of the last extra-special GTI – and that’s regardless how you’ve got it its adaptive dampers configured. And yet – because the TCR is still a GTI at heart – it doesn’t have the hip-swivelling handling agility, tactile driver engagement or the sheer excitement value of its greatest rivals, either.

The car is totally at home on track, particularly so on the optional Michelin Cup 2 rubber on which we tested it – but with more notable precision and unflappable stability about its handling than balance and direction-changing vigour. It’s enormously capable and viceless when being driven fast, keeping its body supremely flat and working its tyres very evenly, and sticking as assiduously to a chosen line as a besieged British cabinet minister.

On the road, though, where you expect a fast Golf to be nothing short of brilliant, the TCR’s ride is guilty of the odd stumble and stutter. It can feel firm, stubborn and excitable when dealing with bigger, sharper intrusions – though it’s not so reactive as ever to deflect the car’s steering, nor is it any kind of barrier to your enjoyment of the car when the surface is good.

But now and again, when a ridge or lump in the road taken at pace makes the car’s damping bristle and grab – and when the suspension seems keener on pummeling the road and rebounding off it than engaging with it – one particularly telling and unwelcome thought may begin to interrupt your enjoyment of this car, just as it did for me: “wouldn’t a standard GTI have dealt with that better”?