When it arrived in September last year, the facelifted Hyundai i30 N brought several healthy upgrades over the previous version of the performance hatchback. More notably, a new eight-speed, wet-type dual-clutch gearbox was introduced to boost the car’s performance on track. If you’ve been asking yourself how does that new transmission perform in real-world conditions, we have a new video that will probably give you the answers you need.
One of Sport Auto’s latest videos on YouTube takes us to the most demanding track in the world. Of course, we are talking about the Nurburgring where the team behind the YT channel puts the refreshed i30 N to its limits. The video is attached at the top of the text here and takes us onboard the South Korean hot hatch.
Gallery: Hyundai i30 N (2020)
As a reminder, powering the i30 N with the Performance Package - the one that’s filmed here - is a 2.0-liter turbocharged engine that produces 276 horsepower (206 kilowatts) and 289 pound-feet (392 Newton-meters) of torque. On paper, the hot hatch should be able to hit 62 miles per hour (100 kilometers per hour) from a standstill in just 5.9 seconds, making it 0.2 seconds compared to the pre-facelift version.
During this Nurburgring run, the car looks pretty composed in the corners and really fast on the straights. Sport Auto’s test driver Christian Gebhardt laps the Green Hell in 8:05,19 minutes. This time puts the car on par with the lap times of, for example, the BMW M3 E92, Mercedes-Benz CLK63 Black Series, and VW Golf GTI TCR. For this run, the i30 N rides on Pirelli P Zero Trofeo R tires.
Racing An i30 N:
It’s important to note that Sport Auto has some issues when entering the Schwalbenschwanz section of the track. Their recording rig stops running for a moment, though the chronometer keeps working fine. Therefore, the time of 8:05,19 minutes is correct.
Source: Sport Auto on YouTube