Renault Duster 1.3 Turbo Petrol

Checked out the new Duster at a couple of times and test drove the turbo petrol manual in Iconic guise.

I find the design of the new Duster to be one of the most appealing facets on the vehicle. It's not surprising though given that the Triber and the Kwid facelift look very nice too. 

Design

Head on, the Duster logo written out across the front grilled bookended by the slim led headlights grab your attention followed by the faux bullbar in silver trim that enclose the lower grilled element. The vertical black trims at the edge of the bumper may be mistaken for fog lamps, however the fog lamps are little cubes and the bottom of the bumper. Very susceptible to damage in case the lower bumper hits a rock or something. The ground clearance is a boon... however I would preferred a higher location. 

At the rear, the Duster has thankfully not gone along with those featureless rears of KIA, Tata Sierra and the new Maruti Victoris. Designers seems to have no clue what to do with the real estate freed up by slim led tail lamps. The tail lamps of the Duster actually look substantial and the connected black trim give the rear hatch some character, as does the rear diffuser like element finished in silver trim.

From the size, the doors are well proportioned and nowhere do you see a vast expanse of sheet metal not knowing what it's there for. The cladding looks good and the plastic gives off a feeling of toughness. The 18 inch wheels fill out the arches well too. I saw the Techno variant as well with the 17 inch alloys and that looks pretty good too.

Interiors

I did flirt with buying the Duster back in 2017 and one of the biggest turn offs was the archaic interiors. Nothing like that in the new Duster. Good quality plastic finished with soft touch material, very contemporary design and a well integrated screen that felt good. I didn't play around much with the screen though. The Duster has enough physical buttons and as long as basic screen functions like navigation,calls, and music work well i really don't pay much attention to screens. One particular peeve I have is a dislike for screen that just out considerably over the dashboard surface. I love how the new Taigun has integrated the screen. The Duster screen does pop up over the dashboard a bit but I can live with that.

The iconic upholstery rocks and the seats feel very comfortable. While the rear has enough legroom, seating three abreast will be a challenge. The substantial side bolstering on the front seats may be a bit too cozy for broader body types though.

The interior color combination for the variants other than the Iconic didn't impress me though. a sort of dark brown fabric, paired with dark grey for the middle of the seats and whalebone colored inserts in dash and door pads. Underwhelming.

Boot space is very good and while Renault doesn't provide a spare the enclosure looks big enough to keep one of your own if needed. Puncture repair kits are such a shortsighted feature in India. One cool feature of the electric boot release mechanism is the ability to stop it at any height but pressing the close button as it is rising up.

Ride and Handling

Handling was impressive. I drove on a stretch that had a mix of long sweeping uphill corners and tight curving decents. The Duster was very comfortable hustling into and out of the corners with the brakes very effective at shaving off the speed before the curves. The four wheel disc brakes were really good. 

Ride while providing a sense of toughness is not a magic carpet ride like the previous Duster. Navigating through a rough potholes section the Duster did reveal the hard edges of it's suspension and did rock from side to side. Nothing uncomfortable though but it didn't faltten out the rough terrain as expected.

Engine and Transmission 

The 1.3 turbo petrol is a beauty, eager to rev and picking up speed in no time. Coupled with a marvelously light clutch shifting up and down the rev range was effortless. However below 1500 power drops significantly and the  turbo lag makes itself evident which means that you get busy with the gear lever having to go down a cog more than you expect. But above 1500 the engine comes alive reving freely and providing a delightful mid range punch. Reminds me of the first generation Swift diesel that woke up after 2000 rpm. 

All in all a very impressive package and if in the market for an new car today, i would strongly consider this. It offers a refreshing take over the regular run of the mill shapes that crowd this segment. The 1.5 lakh km or 7 year warranty does give a peace of mind though TVS service remains to be proven.

Aramco Formula 1 Japanese Grand Prix

For the fourth race running the formula repeated itself. The Silver Arrows botch their starts, get swamped by the Ferrari's, Russell jumps Antonelli who loses 3-4 places. In the course on the next few laps the Silver Arrows proceed to undo the damage and end up 1 and 2. Well this race had a new comer in the form of Oscar Piastri, who of course has the same engine. Piastri made an excellent start,  swung around Antonelli and moved to the right to block Russell,who in turn tripped up a fast starting Hamilton, giving Leclerc a chance to follow Piastri and end up P2. 

Antonelli meanwhile ended up behind Norris in P6. That did not last long. In the course of two laps he overtook both Norris and Hamilton to end up in P4 behind Leclerc. By this time Russell had overtook Leclerc and set off after Piastri who had opened up a 2 second gap.

The Mclaren performance looks promising and hopefully ending the one horse or rather wolf race at front. Piastri looked very comfortable holding onto the lead and preempted Russell by pitting first with the Mclaren pit crew executing a flawless pitstop to send him out with track position.

For the last 15 years Suzuka has never seen a safety car. But as has been proven in the starting races this season, records will be broken. What looked like a botched pass by Bearman saw him slide on to the grass before the Spoon curve and end up in the barriers and a 50G impact. Later it was determined that a battery deployment triggered the overtake on Colapinto with a closing speed differential of over 50kph forcing Bearman to take evasive action. Another critical safety issue to fix in the current battery era. 

What was Bearman's loss turned out to be a godsend to Antonelli and Hamilton who had not pitted yet...giving them a free pitstop. Antonelli ended up in P1 but Hamilton was held up by Verstappen coming into the pits ending up in P4 behind Russell who he tried to harry after the safety car restart. But the Merc proved to be too strong and Hamilton ended up in a usual battle with his teammate who pulled of a close but clean pass. Piastri meanwhile ended up in P2 behind Antonelli who with clean air before him, promptly proceeded to build up a sizeable gap.

A common tactic employed by drivers was to get their opponent to overtake them on the straight after the 130R forcing battery deployment and the proceeding to retake the position on the main straight. The subsequent technical sections comprising of the esses, Degna till the Spoon curve reward a mechanically and aerodynamically sorted chassis than outright performance, where the Ferrari had an advantage helping Leclerc keep Russell behind him till the end to secure P3 for Ferrari. Oscar held onto P2 unable to challenge Antonelli and untroubled by the Ferrari behind him.

The Red Bulls were more competitive with Verstappen overtaking a few cars before ending up behind the Alpine of Gasly and unable to pass without losing the position on the repass. Maybe one option should be to allow only 80% battery deployment and 20% reserve to defend against a repass. But anyway, there is quite a distance for Red Bull to go before making this a four horse race.

Has the racing become better. After 3 races especially one on a drivers circuit like Suzuka, I would say no. F1 used to be about the drivers who could maximise grip on the corners, brake late into a corner and use tools like DRS etc to overtake or defend on straights. With corners now becoming battery harvesting opportunities this capability has become secondary. For drivers like Max Verstappen who differentiate themselves by having more of this craft, and viewers like me who tune in to watch humans like him perform superhuman overtakes and passes the current battery managed spectacle is kind of a damper. We don't tune in to see the yo yo ping pong battle. And that is what corporate animals like Toto Wolf and Stefano Domenicali simply don't understand. Welcome to corporate F1. It was good while it lasted.