You do not have to drive quick to have an excellent time. Working example: my outing within the revamped Toyota GR Yaris Evo was probably the most enjoyable I’ve had in a automobile this yr, and I by no means even obtained out of second gear. In my protection I used to be on a frozen Finnish lake.

That sheet of ice was close to Jyväskylä within the 1000 Lakes area, the heartland of Finland’s rally scene and, handily, the house of Toyota’s World Rally Championship staff. And it was the right canvas to expertise the capabilities of the Japanese agency’s sizzling hatch.

Nicely, no less than a few of its capabilities: if you wish to expertise the GR Yaris’s mighty acceleration and guaranteed high-speed dealing with, you would be higher off attempting it out on a monitor, as my colleague Matt Prior did. However if you wish to really feel simply how versatile, straight and controllable the GR Yaris is, properly, you want ice, ice, child.

And it is actually controllable. It did not take a lot observe earlier than I might throw it right into a slide and management it for a stunning period of time with throttle alone. After all it helped that I had a pro-level Finnish rally driver, whereas imparting some imprecise information of Scandinavian flights and sideways driving – but it surely helped extra that the GR Yaris is simply such a splendidly balanced factor.

With its thrilling 1.6-litre turbo engine it is vastly highly effective and pleasantly wild with out ever feeling intimidating, and the facelift updates (together with a greater seating place and dashboard structure, and a brand new automated ‘field ) marked actual enhancements.

Even in unfamiliar environment, I by no means felt out of my depth – properly, no less than till Jari-Matti Latvala gave me a passenger experience. It appears you can driving quick on a frozen lake, although my rearranged insides nonetheless query whether or not it was extra enjoyable.