WE DRIVE A TEAM DYNAMICS HONDA CIVIC
Behind the controls of a BTCC race winner
Coming down” calls Team Dynamics technician Craig Smith moments before the air jacks are depressed and the Honda FK8 Civic Type R drops onto the Silverstone pitlane.
As if a reminder as to what I’m about to undertake is required, dropping to the ground in such a fever-filled way with a Dynamics logo staring at me from the steering wheel could leave me in no doubt.
I’m about to get a taste of what it’s like to drive a car fresh from competing in arguably the world’s greatest tin-top series. This is the actual car that British Touring Car Championship legend Matt Neal raced this year and took to ninth in the points table.
For the first time in 2020, the BTCC will race on the International layout at Silverstone, run out of the Formula 1 Wing building pit garages. So, not only is it a rare and special experience to get a go in a current BTCC race-winner, but I’m also about to get a taste of the track where the series’ biggest names will do battle next September.
While Silverstone is renowned for having its own micro-climate, teams and fans can expect the ambient temperature to be pleasant, even if it does rain next September. It’s unlikely that ice will need scraping from car windows in order to drive to the circuit. That is very much unlike today, at the end of November.
I didn’t mind the ice though: at least it would thaw and it wasn’t the torrential rain of the previous day, plus the winter sun’s out.
That positivity is short-lived, however. To say Silverstone’s Tarmac is greasy is a significant understatement. So much so that, despite the circuit having no standing water, Neal’s team-mate Dan Cammish (who, until the very final laps of the 2019 title-decider at Brands Hatch, had the title prize within touching distance until a rare technical failure put him into a barrier) completed just one installation lap in the Civic before returning to the pitlane and requesting Dunlop’s wet rubber.
Courtesy of Honda UK, before climbing aboard the BTCC machine I’d already got my first experience of the International route in a road going Civic Type R, then the latest hybrid NSX, having first watched an onboard on Youtube to work out where the circuit went.
While I’d discovered that both cars were huge amounts of fun and quite at home being thrown around the home of British motor racing, I’d also ascertained that the Tarmac could be described in technical lingo as grip-limited. Or, in layman’s terms, bloody slippery.
Now the car is on the ground and having been talked through the controls by Neal, I press the ignition button on the dash, then the start button and wait for the Honda K20C two-litre turbocharged engine to fire into life. One more press of the pump button to activate the power steering and I’m ready to go.
Thankfully, although Neal’s figure is significantly more slight than my own, he is one of the tallest drivers in motor racing at six foot and six inches tall. While the belts need adjusting, the seating position is very comfortable, almost on the car’s floor to keep the all-important centre of gravity as low as possible.
The view between the top of the dashboard and the bottom of the sun strip is noticeably shallow: no wonder BTCC drivers sometimes occasionally bump into each other…
I’m given the thumbs up that the pitlane is clear and I’m pleasantly surprised with how much feel there is through the clutch pedal. Critically I don’t stall, saving myself embarrassment, and I quickly pull the sequential gear lever back towards me with a firm tug to select second. Then I start riding the brake pedal slightly with my left foot in a vain attempt to build some brake temperature since the car has been sitting in the pitlane for some time.
As the pitlane’s gradient increases and turns to the right to head onto the circuit, with not a huge amount of throttle application, the Civic’s front wheels light up, scrabbling for grip. I shift to third gear, then fourth, the car picking up speed but still happily spinning the wheels if the throttle is pressed hard enough as I head towards the first real corner of this adventure, the right-hander at Village. Then I cut through The Loop and turn sharp right onto Hangar Straight.
The first tour around the 1.851-mile lap is about finding my feet as much as possible. Coming from a rallycross background, that distance is almost half a race.
This is the first top-level circuit car I’ve driven, and two things immediately strike me. The chassis feels very taught; there’s barely any body roll and, compared to ultra-soft rallycross tyres that are designed to work from cold, how relatively little grip these 18-inch
Dunlops offer straight out of the pits.
I’m aware that I ought to try to get as much temperature into the tyres and AP Racing brakes as I can to get the most from the car. I’ve watched enough BTCC safety car periods on ITV4 to know that but, at the same time, running here is limited, and I need to get on with it.
Learning even a little about a car in such a short period is always a challenge, but finding braking points in these slippery conditions I find even more difficult. A couple of times in the opening laps, leaning on the middle pedal with my left foot as hard as I dare, I lock up even at slow speed. That is briefly accompanied by telltale differential chatter before I quickly release the brakes again, but almost every time I make it to somewhere in the region of the apex, several times with a small amount of opposite-lock required to keep the car heading forwards.
This International layout is diverse: the first two corners of Abbey and Farm are fast, before heavy braking into Village. Through the left kink of The Loop, the low sun is directly in my eyes and I don’t tempt fate by aiming for the sausage kerb on the inside of the left when vision is compromised, before keeping left then turning hard right onto Hangar Straight.
Prior to the run, Neal had told me to make use of the low kerbs and I’m impressed with how, even though the chassis is stiff and the Penske dampers have so little travel compared to what
I’m used to, the Civic absorbs up the kerbs with a satisfying rumble beneath.
While the chassis feels very agile and the power delivery from the turbocharged engine is so linear it’s almost like a naturally aspirated motor, and feels like it has more than its 350bhp-plus when trying to avoid wheelspin while getting the power down on corner exit, I’m not stunned by the power output down the straight.
But, with well-perfected gearing, down Hangar Straight I’ve pulled all six cogs with the flat-shift system that allows you to change up the ‘box while on full throttle, and I’m flat in top with one eye on the shift lights heading towards their maximum at the 7000rpm limiter. As I approach Stowe, a legendary and somewhat fearsome corner, it feels like I’m really travelling.
I find Stowe to be one of the biggest challenges, working out just how much speed to scrub off under braking before turning in and being back on the throttle.
The Civic benefits from a clever rear-steer system as part of the rear suspension geometry perfected by the
Dynamics squad, but I’m acutely aware that I’m probably not keeping anywhere near as much heat in the rear tyres as is optimum and don’t want to lean on the car too hard. Stowe’s exit is wide though and I run almost out to the kerb on the left before heading down into the final complex at Club.
This is a formidable sequence of corners too, and I never really get on top of where to brake before the left hander, before turning hard right for the doubleapex final corners, taking Neal’s advice and short-shifting between the two righthanders to help the car maintain grip.
For the first few laps, I’m wary of the kerb on the outside of the final turn, where the best line would be found, hesitant of grip availability.
I grow in confidence with each lap and I’m pushing harder, but in the few brief tours, find it difficult to extract a lot of the braking areas and corner entries, the lack of grip doing little to put me at ease.
“It’s difficult because the conditions aren’t the easiest,” Neal reassures me afterwards. “If it was dry, you can be a lot more aggressive with your inputs, you can really gorilla the steering, throw it into the corner and the car will grip. And you can be a lot more aggressive with the throttle, treat it more like a switch, and the brake pressure you can use double. In the damp conditions we’ve got here now, it’s all about being progressive and smoothness, really. I liken these cars to a Formula 3 car where you’ve got to carry momentum through the corners. It’s all about balance.”
On the penultimate lap, as I change down the box and weight transfers forward under braking for right-hander at Village I snatch the front axle even at low speed and immediately I know I’m not going to make the apex.
The minor moment almost happens in slow motion and, while I know by turning in hard and getting hard into the throttle I will probably yet still make where I planned to be, I’m also aware that in these conditions, that could result in creating a bigger moment too.
Instead, knowing that there is ample Tarmac run-off, I come back out of the brakes, open up the steering so the wheels are straight and let the car run out wide, just clipping the metre-wide grass on the outside of the corner that separates the circuit from the run-off.
In a rallycross car, at the moment
I was unsure about making the apex I would have given the hydraulic handbrake a slight tug which would have locked the rear wheels in an instance and helped get the nose in.
BTCC snapper Jakob Ebrey, who’s shooting this test, remarks on how long it is since he’s seen anyone drive a BTCC machine in an open-face rally-style helmet. I’d be happy to trade wearing a full-face lid for the implementation of a handbrake. Frankly, I think in wet conditions like those that hit the Silverstone BTCC round earlier this year, drivers of front-wheel-drive machines would love them…
My moment is survived without any drama and I complete the run. Heading down the pit entry, I push the gear lever forward three times, then pull the smaller lever behind and give the gearstick a further shove to get neutral.
Then it’s time for another fever moment, as I free-wheel into the pit box,