Volvo race car VS Volvo S60 polestar in Speed VS Skill

In this classic clip, taken from series 23 which was first broadcast in 2013, It’s Jonny vs. Swedish touring car champion Frederik Ekblom. Jonny is driving the champion’s Volvo race car while Frederik drives its road car cousin, the Volvo S60 polestar. For access to exclusive Fifth Gear content and all FULL episodes, join our channel

Welcome back to fifth gear next we’ve got triple swedish touring car champion frederick ekblom versus me between us we’ve got over 700 horsepower to play with and it’s raining a lot i’m going to drive frederick’s 200 000 rear-wheel drive race car while he drives the four-wheel drive road-going version in two-track battles i’ve got more power but he’s got more

Skill we’ve got no idea which combination will be fastest the conditions on the track are wet and wild i can’t believe you’re going that quick in this weather and our first challenge a 200-meter drag race is filling me with dread sensing my fear fred has insisted i undergo some touring car tuition before he gives me free reign in his race car so you’ve never

Been a passenger in your own car i’ve never driven a touring car i’ve never driven on this track and it’s raining yeah i’m i’m i’m not gonna lie my nerves are in tatters i’m really feeling the pressure so excuse me while i concentrate start is there okay okay so the drill is clutch in press that button hold clutch is very short oh good good i feel like i’ve

Just joined the circus and i’m about to tame a you can lion the transmission really shuffling about when it’s at low rpm it doesn’t really idle below 2000 just wants to swallow as much fuel as possible i don’t know whether i don’t know where the wipers are fred the machine feels totally alien instead of mastering the controls i’m completely focused on fred’s

Earlier essential advice don’t go in the puddles here you have to go in the middle no puddles aquaplate sorry mate sorry i haven’t really explored 8 300 rpm and i i can’t promise that i will after a couple of laps of tuition i’m confident enough to take the car closer to its potential there goes the shift light that’s 8 300 the brakes are so immediate really

Very good not snatchy the grip is actually very good considering how wet it is really very reassuring which is what i want when i’m nervous fred that was an epic i’m happy we’re back in the pits now are you were you scared no i wasn’t scared you weren’t i was uh frightened to death were you oh no no you drove really well i have to say i was it was very good very

Good reassuring words as it’s now time for me to race the race car against its road equivalent driven by fred a 200 meter drag race over three rounds can polstar’s road legal super saloon defeat its more powerful race car cousin i don’t think it’s going to be quite as simple a result as everyone thinks for a start you’ve got four wheel drive yeah and i do zero

To 104.9 seconds while if you make a perfect start in my race car you should be able to do it in three seconds but you have to control the wheel spin so the start is the key i need a perfect start to win this earlier i struggled with the aggressive racing clutch and stalling at the start of a race is my biggest fear now this is daunting because i’m rear-wheel

Drive on a wet day he’s all-wheel drive with launch control okay i put it in sports launch control is ready wow that happened quickly he got me off the line with all-wheel drive and then i came round and i might have just nosed ahead the reaction times of the pole star road car were incredible the launch control and the four-wheel drive system combined to beat

Me and my stuttering start off the line but the race cars extra 70 horsepower helped me claw back the lead and i won by 4 100 of a second yes i’ve got to let the clutch cool down every single time i launch the clutch is very small and actually quite quite temperamental let’s go for another drag race the clutch is horrendous okay here we go wheel spin wheelspin

Third gear oh no he beats me again oh gosh wow unbelievable well this time i’m putting the air conditioning on i think it’s about three or four horsepowers right let’s talk it third time lucky my clutch control let me down and the s60 road car showed its pace hey i don’t know who won who wouldn’t beat me two times did i first you take my car and then you beat

Me i thought you were nice hey that was close but that that weighs 600 odd kilos more it fits five adults in complete comfort that it really went it’s fantastic and especially the first 20 meters it’s really it’s like a rocket yeah you had me on every time when you started it was absolutely slashing down yeah i forgot to put the wipers on on the last round i

Couldn’t see a damn thing you sound like a real racing driver now because they all usually have a lot of excuses it’s power versus skill we’re finding out if the combination of rookie in a race car is faster than racing driver in a road car with two of the most extreme volvos you’ve ever seen the conditions on the swedish under stop circuit are extreme it’s

Rained heavily so it’s been hard for me to learn how to drive fred’s race car i don’t know where the wipers are fred despite never having driven a touring car before i managed to take frederick’s race machine to overall victory in a 200 meter drag race i might have just nosed ahead but we’ve been blown away by the performance of the road legal s60 super salute

Now it’s time to test them both over a flying lap right now fred is trying to set a best lap in the standard pole star car around the anderstorp circuit the north loop flat out close to 200 kilometers once he’s got a lap time that he’s happy with he’s going to come in i’m going to go out and try and beat him but the difference is i’m going to be in his race car

The time to beat is 59.6 seconds before i try and smash it in fred’s 200 grand race weapon he’s showing me the racing line we’re in the the production car of what of what you race this s60 has been fine-tuned by pole star volvo’s racing division it’s got faster gear shifts than a standard s60 whilst the all-wheel drive software puts more emphasis on rear torque

Giving it a more rear-wheel drive character take your braking point into the corner use the banking and then get quite early on the power the grip of this car is stunning they’ve tweaked the four-wheel drive to suit a more aggressive driving style and you know it’s still a family car which you can take to the take the kids to school yeah here it’s a second gear

You can cut the curbs quite hard here if you go a little bit wide that’s okay and then you flow outside to the outer apex and sometimes you can even go outside of that curbs but not today when it’s raining because then they’re really slippery i mean this is almost volvo’s answer to audi’s s4 for example loads of turbocharged grunt four-wheel drive amazing traction

Even in this kind of horrible weather now it’s time for me to set my own lap in the race car in my test runs earlier i wasn’t exactly confident and struggled to push the car to the limit yet somehow i had to pull everything together and beat a lap time of 59.6 seconds and just to keep on the pressure fred will be climbing on board next to me good that clutch

Is not my best friend oh it’s not mine either for him you know i i can only imagine if you know you don’t know the track you don’t know the car you have a lot of power and then you know a lot of rain it’s it’s not a good combination so he was shaking you know i could see that before the start for sure things didn’t go well on my opening lap as i approached the

Nora corner position until the car is off track wait until the car is on track up i went in a little bit quicker than normal right out sorry no it was fun you know i have a little spin end up in the grass it’s no problem you know we didn’t hit anything nobody got hurt and the car is okay so any time no problem with a little bit of help we were on the move again

I’m just glad i didn’t damage the car okay tony we are getting close to um start a finish line so get prepared okay man i was i was seriously nervous i was concentrating so hard i really grew up in the wheel very hard i wasn’t talking a lot at all okay let’s go remember your lines now i wanted to make sure i didn’t break too late and get the car unsettled and

Really twitchy it’s mid-engined it’s quite well balanced but you know it’s still terrible rain lots of standing water on the track we’ll take care of the puddles now explore it on this track it’s quite long corners so you need to really be very gentle and i think that sort of suits its driving style that’s good that’s good keep the line apply power flat good

Fred in the passenger seat was fantastic very cool very calm very encouraging now use the revs all the way good time yeah i clocked to one minute and one second dead 1.4 seconds behind fred’s road car time this thrilling experience has taught me that in treacherous conditions skill and grip are far more important than power the fast but rock steady pole star

Road car also shows that it’s time to take volvo seriously when it comes to four-wheel speed it’s more controllable than the race car it felt as fast as i could go given the amount of time i’ve had on this track in that car it was a it was wetter when he was out driving and he was a few seconds off me but i’m impressed he did a good job you

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Volvo race car VS Volvo S60 polestar in Speed VS Skill | Fifth Gear By Fifth Gear