King of the ring

Honda’s all-new Civic Type R has set a new benchmark lap time for front-wheel drive cars at the legendary Nürburgring Nordschleife test track in Germany when a development car lapped the world-famous circuit in 7mins 43.8 seconds.

The lap time was achieved on a dry track with optimum ambient temperature for best tyre and powertrain performance.

The new time represents an improvement of nearly seven seconds compared to the model’s predecessor.

The new Civic Type R was part of the all-new tenth-generation Civic’s development programme – the largest in Honda’s history – and has been engineered at Honda’s factory in Swindon.

Production of the new Civic is under way at the factory and the new Type R will be joining the line up later this year.