The Ford, bluntly, just feels up for whatever you want to throw at it, like the more powerful ST. It’s not particularly fast, but the little three-cylinder picks up cleanly from far below where you think it might, urging the Black down the road with a charming dose of enthusiasm. The brakes are strong, and although there’s a cheerily wayward feel to the back end if you really stand on them into a corner, there’s not very much lean and it has exceptional chassis poise. Bumps don’t upset it (unless you clip one with a back wheel mid-corner), the steering is accurate and easy, and you find yourself pouring the Fiesta into corners with ever more speed trying to catch it out. No, there isn’t a surfeit of turbo torque to heave you out of a corner (both cars suffer after third gear) but, equally, it means that you never overwhelm the tyres in tighter turns, no matter how hard you get on the gas. So you go faster by thinking a bit more. The clutch is light, the gearbox good enough and, if you tip it in and lift sharply, you can even get an incipient-oversteer tailwag just like the ST. You’ll be going 15mph slower, but I’m not sure you’re actually having any less fun.