SAY HELLO TO the new ‘Ring record holder. The 2107 Honda Civic Type R has set the fastest ever lap for a front-wheel drive car around the Green Hell.
OK, the car that set the record isn’t the car that you or I will be able to buy, it’s more a development car as it featured a full floating roll cage – although Honda says it “did not provide any additional rigidity to the body frame.”
The maker adds: “The extra weight of the cage was compensated for by the temporary removal of the infotainment system and rear seats.” The car was also using road legal track-focused tyres.
The car blasted around the world-(in)famous Nurburgring Nordschleife in a blistering 7 minutes and 43.8 seconds.
Ryuichi Kijima is the lead chassis engineer for the Honda Civic Type R. He explains where the all-new model shows improvements around the Nurburgring compared to the previous generation:
The cornering speed achieved in the new Type R is higher because the car features a wider track and tyres, a longer wheelbase, new multi-link suspension in the rear and optimised aerodynamics that improves stability. For example, drivers typically enter the corner after Metzgesfeld at around 150 km/h. Even at this medium-speed corner, the speed is around 10 km/h higher due to the new Type R’s excellent stability.
The new Honda Civic Type R is powered by a 2.0-litre VTEC turbo engine that produces 315hp and 400Nm of pulling power and the six-speed manual gearbox features lower gear ratios to help with acceleration. The new model is also 16kg lighter than the outgoing model with a torsional stiffness improvement of 38 per cent, which provides significant benefits to steering response and cornering stability.
The multi-link rear suspension has been tweaked to increase stability under braking and reduce the total roll movement of the car, enabling later braking into corners and helping to achieve higher cornering speeds during the lap. Handy, as the official Nurburgring website counts 73 corners on the Nordschleife.
All of these add up to an improvement of nearly seven seconds compared to the model’s predecessor (7:50.63).
Production of the new Civic Type R will begin in summer 2017 at Honda in Swindon.
You can watch the on-board lap footage here:
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