Honda mulling Bathurst Time Attack
Australian lap record bid being investigated for Honda Civic Type RHonda’s Civic Type R Time Attack could be headed for Australia with a new front-wheel drive lap record at Mount Panorama its aim.
Honda Australia is checking the ins and outs of the European Time Attack program, which aims to set new front-wheel drive lap records at five of the continent’s most famous circuits.
The 2009 Formula 1 world champion Jenson Button is one of five drivers down to go after records at places like Spa in Belgium and Silverstone in the UK in the new FK8 Type R, which went on sale in Australia last October.
The program kicked off last week when WTCR touring car driver Esteban Guerrieri took five seconds off the FWD record at the 4.4km Magny-Cours-GP track in France.
“We have had some discussions with our European colleagues as it’s their campaign,” confirmed Honda Australia general manager customer and communications Scott McGregor.
“We’d love to be able to look at opportunities here. To do an attempt like that you’d need engineering resources to support it, but it’s a discussion we wouldn’t mind having.
“At a track like at Mount Panorama it would do pretty well around there. I think it’s a brilliant idea what they are doing.”
Honda has gone as far as researching the front-wheel drive lap record at the iconic 6.2km track, although it hasn’t pinned down the number yet.
Honda’s local interest has been lifted in doing a Bathurst Time Attack because of the immense local response to the turbocharged hot hatch’s lap record-breaking efforts at the Nurburgring in 2017.
“When Type R set the Nurburgring record and we put that through social media it was by far and away the most engaged piece of content we had had on social for a very long time,” said McGregor.
“Any time we talked about Type R doing anything carrying speed everybody is all over it. There certainly is a market there for that.”
So, would Honda Australia bring Button out to drive if it goes ahead, or would it go with local talent? It seems like the later option would be more likely.
“I think Jenson’s arrangement is within a certain geographic region, so we could certainly find someone to do it if we wanted to,” said McGregor.
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