Leaping swiftly to my own defence, I'd been told by not one dealer but two that Clios are not due their first service until 18,000 miles. Taking this at face value, I clocked up the miles and booked the Cup in for its first service.

So imagine how I felt when I turned up at West's Garage, Cambridge, to be told by the service manager that I was in fact 7000 miles late.

Apparently all Clios have their first service at 18,000 miles - all, that is, except the Sport and Cup, which need the work done at 12,000 miles. I wish someone had told those other dealers.

I left the Clio with a couple of problems to be checked. An airbag warning light had come on some miles earlier - this was traced to a trapped wire under the driver's seat, which West's fixed by cutting and resoldering it.

An annoying rattle at 4000rpm was found to be caused by a faulty centre section of the exhaust - a problem that had also afflicted our last Clio Sport. West's have ordered a new section; hopefully I'll soon be able to listen to my own choice of music, rather than the Flight of the Bumble Bee that the Cup insists on playing.

My other concern - and it's one that won't be so easily resolved - is the absence of ABS. The roads around here have been pretty treacherous recently, with lots of black ice, and I'd have been much happier knowing that ABS was there to help me out in an emergency.

I know I shouldn't be so soft and that cars of yesteryear had no such technical advantages, but hang it all, how much weight, if any at all, is being saved by not having ABS? And I can't imagine that many owners would balk at paying a few hundred quid more to have it.

When the roads haven't been covered with snow or ice, they've been damp, greasy or waterlogged. The Continental tyres have coped really well, but they're starting to wear again - shown by the reappearance of tramlining.

Meanwhile, we're looking forward to getting out hands on some of the tasty-sounding goodies that Renault is lining up for Clio Cup owners - especially the good-looking sports seats. Latest word is 'end of May, maybe'. This would coincide with the launch of the eagerly awaited revised Clio V6, so perhaps the Cup extras will be derived from that car. Can't wait!

With the distances I'm covering in our Cup, sportier seats with a bit more support would be a blessing. I'll keep you posted.