With the news today that Jaguar’s XF took out the “Best Executive Car” at What Car? COTY, it would be remiss of us not to have a quick look at which car won the “Performance Cars / Hot Hatches” category.

“Staggering performance, brilliant handling, great refinement and everyday usability”, was enough to win the title for Audi’s R8 supercar – oh, and I forgot to mention the impeccable build quality.

The only real negatives appeared to be the optional R-Tronic semi-automatic which is expensive and jerky at low speeds and the stratospheric pricing on the options list.

Fleshing out the top five were the following;

2 Porsche Cayman S - Driving pleasure in its purest form
3 Mini Cooper 1.6T S - The Mini is ludicrously good fun as ever
4 Honda Civic Type R GT - A real hard case - howling VTEC engine and sharp handling
5 Ferrari F430 - Beautiful, fast, mid-engined coupe with astonishing grip