Whilst we’re huge MINI admirers at Rush, we’ve been rather critical of the latest refresh to the petrol-engine cars, in particular the watered down styling of the new Cooper S. At the end of that article, we pinned our hopes on the range topping John Cooper Works being the car to restore balance to the force, and on the basis of teaser images released ahead of the cars’ full debut at the 24 Hours of Nürburgring, it appears our Jedi mind tricks might’ve worked.

Sure, we’re only looking at images of the car set to be entered by Bulldog Racing in the event itself, but look beyond the camouflage and it’s not hard to pick out the details of the JCW. Perhaps it's the hunkered down race car stance, but there is a certain aggression on display the facelift model has so far lacked. 

The bonnet scoop is still missing, but there are detail changes if you look hard enough - the side skirts appear to jut out into the air that little bit further and the air intakes for the brake ducts and lower oil cooler are bigger. At the back, the rear valance now has space for the deleted twin-exit tailpipes, and we could be mistaken but could that be a more pronounced rear wing? Let’s hope some of these changes will make it to the production car.

One thing we can be confident about is the JCW will retain the same 2.0 litre, turbocharged four-cylinder B48 engine - given the ICE hatch is an evolution of the F56 platform. Making 228 bhp and 236 lb ft in the F56, a small hike to a potential 250 bhp (or even the 261 bhp of the BMW 128ti that shares the B48) would be very welcome to ensure the JCW goes out as one of the hottest B segment hatches ever. What has been confirmed is the JCW will only be sold with the eight-speed ‘sports’ automatic transmission, with emissions laws quashing hope of a manual variant.

Still, we remain grateful that the car exists as MINI transitions to an all-electric future. In a bold strategy, MINI has decided to run parallel JCW models in both petrol and EV power at the same time. It will be interesting to see which version comes off best in the driving stakes as well as which one performs better in terms of sales. Let’s just hope the ICE car is not being held back in order to clear a path for the future. We won’t have long to wait to find out, with the N24 just around the corner, taking place over the 1st and 2nd of June.