It ran a best time of 39 seconds – nothing special but no disgrace. It felt safe and quick, with positive steering and total wet-road stability. Even with rivers of water running down the middle of the track, I felt it could easily have used more power.
In our little EV class, I was easily beaten into third by a pair of Tesla Model 3 Performance entries, but I beat a game local entrant in a Nissan Leaf. On a dry track with a more capable driver than me, the 5 could have sliced five seconds off my best time, and a 5-based Alpine A290 a couple more, but the main thing was that I had fun.
Perhaps our little group’s biggest win was that of all the clifftop tents competitors were using to protect their gear from the awful weather, ours was the very last in the paddock to blow away…
The whole exploit didn’t prove much else, except that it’s perfectly easy to drive a 5 from London to Cornwall with one stop (the same number you would choose in a petrol car), relying on a range of 180 miles if you cruise at 65-70mph. You will get around 4.0mpkWh if you do, which is impressive.
My 5 has now passed 11,000 miles in a few months, because it brilliantly combines fun, practicality, park-anywhere compactness and sprightly performance in town or outside. Even though the 5 has been on sale in the UK for more than nine months and is becoming a reasonably common sight, people still stop me in the street after I’ve just parked to enquire what it’s really like.
