- This is the flagship, right?
- Why on earth are you on track with it, then?
- Quick between corners, slow through them?
- Range Rover Sport: ride impressions
- A fast lap of the Goodwood whets the appetite for all-new Range Sport
- Land Rover’s claiming best-ever dynamics with comfort and off-road ability
- Matt Becker drives; now Jaguar Land Rover’s vehicle engineering director
Everyone knows Porsche and BMW gave the big SUV its road manners, ushering in an era of premium 4x4s as happy being hustled as they are doing dog-transportation duties. But it was the original Range Rover Sport (2005) that did the same for the lauded British brand, banishing the notion that supreme off-road ability had to come bundled with woozy body control and a paucity of on-road poise.
Now the L461, third-generation Range Rover Sport’s upon us, and it’s a complete reboot. There’s an all-new structure (the 35% stiffer MLA Flex platform) and a suite of new chassis tech, including the rear-steer system that’s so comprehensively transformed the full-sized Range Rover. And while the initial model line-up leans heavily on combustion engines, this generation of Range Rover and Range Rover Sport finally embraces electrification proper, first with a couple plug-in hybrids and ultimately with battery-electric variants.
First up, though, something a little more V8-shaped in the P530, and a combination of Matt Becker and the fast and flowing Goodwood circuit to give it a good going over.
This is the flagship, right?
Sure is. The P530 uses the new Range Rover/Range Sport engine option, jointly developed with BMW. It’s a 4.4-litre, twin-turbo unit well known in its native role from cars like the M850i.
And it’s a corker; smooth, turbo-tractable and blessed with a high-rpm shove that makes hanging onto gears well worth the effort. With 523bhp, 0-62mph comes in 4.5sec. The pokier of the PHEV options (the 510e, with 503bhp and 0-62mph in 5.4sec) is very nearly as powerful but it’s porkier too, and this is not a car in need of any more weight. This generation Sport is around 100kg heavier than the outgoing car, weighing in at 2.5 tonnes.
Why on earth are you on track with it, then?
Because Land Rover’s adamant it’s never offered a car with such versatility before, and it’s keen to show off the closest thing it’s yet built to a sports car. Mr Becker’s also keen to show off his handiwork, given his arrival some six months ago meant he was only able to make limited inputs to the Range Rover programme. With Range Sport, by contrast, he’s been able to get right into the development programme, driving and tweaking as he sees fit.
‘I do miss sports cars but cars like this and the DBX [Aston’s superb-to-drive SUV] are more challenging, so they’re very satisfying projects,’ says Becker. ‘We were at the Nürburgring with this last week, mainly on the roads and motorways around it rather than on the circuit itself, and I work very closely with the engineers. I think that’s the best way, so you’re able to give more detailed feedback. It speeds up the development process, and eventually you build that rapport whereby they don’t even need me to drive the car to know what I will and won’t like.’
With that the Sport leaves the pitlane, settles back a touch on its haunches and gathers speed with implausible haste, the V8 pulling like its shacked to an Evoque, not the big but undoubtedly beautiful Range Rover Sport.
The first corner looms. We’re still accelerating. Glancing over at Becker, non-plussed and comfortable within the Sport’s beautiful interior (every bit as seductively minimalist as that of the Range Rover, only more snug thanks to the shallower glasshouse and higher shoulder-line), I wonder if we might start braking soon. We finally do, but only when we’re all but into the fast double-apex right-hander that kicks off the lap.
Quick between corners, slow through them?
Not so much. Sure, the weight never disappears, and Becker’s careful to bring down our speed before corner entry, so as not to overwhelm the front tyres by overlapping braking and steering. But the front end responds faithfully and there’s oodles of grip, the powerful electronic anti-roll control working hard to give us the kind of vice-like body control that swells driver confidence.
‘It’s such a powerful tool,’ muses Becker. ‘The system gives us this amazing body control without sacrificing ride quality, plus we can use it to change the behaviour of the chassis depending on drive mode. So, you can make the car keener to turn and a little more oversteer-biased, or you can calm it right down for high-speed work.’
Further around the lap now, the Sport takes a measured approach to the corner before the back straight, turns cleanly and then begins to build speed again from deep within the corner, Becker leaning on the electronic differential and intelligent all-wheel drive to get on the power earlier than feels possible. I’m waiting for the oversteer that comes so easily in the likes of the DBX and Porsche’s Cayenne but it doesn’t come, Becker preferring a Prost-style smoother-is-faster approach. We’ll have to wait for our first drive later this year to discover if Becker’s blessed the Range Sport with the same hilarious throttle-on adjustability that made his DBX such a star.
The track surface is relatively smooth but the springs and adaptive dampers deal effortlessly with the bumps that do exist and later, going (much) more slowly on rough gravel tracks, they do a staggering job of leaving the cabin serene as the wheels and suspension go about their work.
Range Rover Sport: ride impressions
More speed, more poise and more comfort? Apparently so, and impressively the deeply desirable Sport has an entirely different character from that of the Range Rover, despite the shared components set. Bring on the first drive.
Keyword: Range Rover Sport (2022) ride review: blast off at Goodwood