Is the ford focus st considered a sports car?

Is the ford focus st considered a sports car? - 1

Not in any way! Very few vehicles are considered as sports cars by insurance companies - early Camaros, MG, Tiger, Truimph, etc

No, it's more along the lines of what's known as "a hot hatch" at most

I consider it to be a sporty car.

it has some performance parts like a stronger engine, sports suspension and better steering but its still based on a regular car platform.
same goes for the Golf GTI and other hot hatchbacks.

for a sports car I personally think you need rear wheel drive. Rear wheel drive is more expensive to build than front wheel drive. It also uses up more interior space than front wheel drive.
the difference in how a car with front wheel drive performs compared to a rear wheel drive is the defining feature between a sporty car like an ST or GTI and a sports car. A sports car with rear wheel drive is able to do continuous donuts, easy burnouts and drifts, with front wheel drive this is not always possible.
now as performance increases, so does the range of acceptable technology like AWD or more seats.
cars like an audi S5 or mercedes E63 amg are based on cars that are not sports cars but their sheer performance makes them so.
by the time you start getting to cars with mid mounted engines you get supercars. They are super because they start losing features that even regular sports cars have like any sort of ride comfort, small rear seats or a somewhat usable trunk for the sheer purpose of performance.
when you start grossly outperforming these cars and disregarding any sense of economy you get hypercars. Cars like the bugatti veyron, porsche 918 or ferrari laferrari are so dedicated to speed that they completely disregard their cars being somewhat economic (the veyron costs more than 2 times that of a porsche 918 which is faster on a track yet people keep buying the veyron)