Why you won’t see Honda’s NSX at the track

It may be Honda’s performance and technological tour de force, but the new NSX supercar isn’t bound for any Australian race circuits in the near future.

That’s the message from Honda Australia director Stephen Collins, who this week ruled out a Honda-backed NSX taking part in the national GT series or equivalent because of a perceived lack of value in the exercise.

“We have no plans to go racing," said Collins. "We’ve had a lot of people approach us but at this point we have no plans for local racing.

“We wouldn’t discourage [private teams] but we wouldn’t be a part of it,” Collins continued, before cheekily offering: “I’d cheer them on.”

Honda is expected to dabble in GT racing globally with the NSX, having already unveiled a GT3-spec racer in July. The racer has been “slated for homologation as an FIA GT3 class racecar,” according to Honda’s global communications.

It means the track version could comply with local races such as the Bathurst 12 Hour production car event in February.

Instead, Collins said Honda would maintain a presence in motorsport via its Formula 1 program.

“The racing direction is set ultimately at Honda Motor with their racing division, and for us we still think our Formula 1 program is good for us despite where we are in the field,” he said.

“We just don’t have any desire locally to race.

“We feel that it’s not core at what we do. That’s the short answer, it’s not the core of our business.”

The NSX racer dumps the road car’s hybrid system and all-wheel drive, instead relying solely on the car’s mid-mounted twin-turbo 3.5-litre V6 and rear drive. The nine-speed sual-clutch transmission is also replaced in the racer by a sequential six-speed unit.

Honda Performance Development (HPD) is said to be working heavily with Acura and Honda USA in a range of motorsport programs including the American LeMans series and Pirelli World Challenge.

Contrarily, Collins believes the NSX production car will largely market itself in dealerships and out on the road.

“Word of mouth is a huge, huge thing,” he said.

“You’re not going to see hundreds of them on the road. What we want is for people to come in who are looking at a Jazz and think ‘wow look at that thing over there’.

"I don’t know how you measure it but I think the rub-off is very important to our brand.”