BMW 128ti finishes in 10th place at MOTOR’s Sports Car of the Year 2022

If anyone needed proof that the Sports Car of the Year field is a tough one, the BMW 128ti’s ranking is a serving of reality on a platter.

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By nature, most people are competitive. Some more overtly than others, but there’s generally a vein of mongrel, an unwavering will to win in everyone. Therefore, for competition to work there has to be a wooden spoon. And in the case of the Sports Car of the Year for 2022, that gong goes to the BMW 128ti.

However, finishing 10th shouldn’t be seen as a loss for two reasons. The SCOTY field is a competitive one and it’s full of the best cars of the past year. Merely gaining a position on the starting grid should be seen as a win. Then there’s the fact that while all the judges placed it last in their rankings, a common consensus formed that the 128ti is a package endowed with a subtle turn of pace and a certain elegance to its finish.

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It’s ergonomically sound, too, with the judges praising the seating position as well as the functionality of its controls and interfaces.

So, why didn’t it do better? As Kirby states, “it’s a car that seems very convincing on paper” due to its 180kW/350Nm four-pot. However, harnessing that grunt through the Torsen limited-slip diff and Pirelli P Zero hoops is the hard part, with torque steer being an issue. The steering, too, drew criticism for its muted and inconsistent response while most felt the damping was too flinty given the relaxed body control. Dynamic cohesion isn’t the BMW’s strong point.

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The most damning figure for the 128ti is its lap time. At 1:56.16 it’s a whopping 2.4 seconds slower than the Golf GTI despite being within a tenth of it in the 0-100km/h sprint. Delving deeper, the BMW slightly gains time under brakes and to the apex, but then loses the advantage and more through the mid-point and on corner exit.

Comparisons with the Volkswagen Golf GTI are unavoidable. After all, it’s the car BMW targeted to beat and it’s clear VW knows its audience with its venerable Golf. Considered genesis for the hot hatch, Wolfsburg has decades of expertise behind it. However, the 128ti proves that Munich is still on the first page of its journey into front-wheel-drive performance. In many ways Bernie sums up the 128ti best by professing it’s “the hot hatch for the non-enthusiast”.

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The ultimate sign of a car’s popularity and competence is how much time its key spends in the event key box. BMW’s hot front driver virtually booked a week-long stay in it, only being released from its confines on a needs-must basis.

A quickish, amenable and upmarket hatch it might be, but in a fiercely competitive SCOTY field where driver involvement is paramount, the 128ti was perhaps the only disappointment.

The judge’s comment

Alex Affat

“If you owned this and you’re not the most serious driver, you’d probably enjoy it.”

Ranking: 10th

Andy Enright

“What a weird bag of dynamic inconsistencies. Nothing seems in harmony with anything else. Shame.”

Ranking: 10th

Trent Giunco

“I had high expectations for this. Torque steer and its struggle to put power down weren’t highlights for me.”

Ranking: 10th

Cameron Kirby

“Less than the sum of its parts. Never really coalesces into something as polished as we’d like.”

Ranking: 10th

Bernie Quinn

“Very little nice steering feedback. Torque steer. Gets flustered by mid-corner bumps.”

Ranking: 10th

Luffy’s view

“Engine and gearbox are good but the chassis is fairly weak when pushed to the limit. Mid-to-exit understeer is quite bad.”

The key figures