Actually, according to C&D the Mazdaspeed Protege and the old ITR have the same skidpad numbers of .88g's where the older Protoge's checked in with .86g. I don't think I would call that "out handling" by any means. If you want to get really picky, the lowly SVT Focus pulls out .92g for a big minivan looking contraption. To be honest, I expect the short course times for the Mazdaspeed Protege to be slower due to the abundance of low end torque (160 ft-lbs of torque are available from 3500 rpm's on) when compaired to the stock Protege.

*Note* other sources have claimed as high as .92g's for the ITR, but C&D was the only source available for comparison that listed both the Mazdaspeed Protege and the ITR.