Honda’s “race car for the road” Civic Type R has crisscrossed Europe in an effort to set new benchmarks for front-wheel drive production cars at five legendary circuits across Europe. Inspired by the Civic Type R that smashed the front-wheel drive lap time at the Nürburgring Nordschleife in May 2014, the Honda team developed this European challenge to assert Type R as the leading front-wheel drive performance hatchback.
The campaign started on a rain soaked day in April at Silverstone, the home of the British Grand Prix. Three-time British Touring Car Championship winner Matt Neal took the wheel to set a time of 2:44.45 (minutes). Not content with this time, Matt and the team returned to the circuit later in the month to set a dry lap time of 2:31.85.