New Honda Civic Type R: hot hatch prototype drive

Some stats, like the 0-62mph time, remain under lock and key until next week, but a tenth of a second here or there is no matter; more significant are the all-new chassis and suspension, stiffer, stronger, no heavier and more able to be tinkered with, teased and enhanced, according to Honda engineers. It is longer, lower and wider than before, too, with associated benefits for the centre of gravity.

Oh, and still fast. Just because it’s inevitable that Honda should break it, we shouldn’t take the firm’s latest assault on the front-drive lap record of the Nürburgring for granted.

Early driving impressions of the Civic Type R

Two laps on an unfamiliar circuit. Not much to learn from pussyfooting around, then, and I dare say that had any racing driver been there to witness my efforts he or she would have pondered whether I’d ever heard of a racing line. To bastardise a familiar phrase, I barely put a foot right.

And yet. Too much speed into a bend? Out steps the rear. Too much throttle through a bend? Again, a playful slip, but nothing scary. And boy does it grip. Too much out of a bend? Keep your foot in and it’ll grip, wheels and steering wheel squirming, but pulling you out of trouble. And always, always with feedback through the steering wheel, telling you what’s happening beneath those wheels.

Is the steering feel a touch light? Yes, I think so, but it is also very purposeful and very precise. Where the old Type R was regimented to the point of being racing car focused, there’s more than a tease here that this is a car that will play with you, in the way the standard-bearing Ford Focus ST might. Fingers crossed.

Perhaps most significantly, the poor engineer paid to sit next to me raises not even an eyebrow as I prod and poke my way around the track, stamping on the brakes, charging on the throttle and making a general hash of things.

Instead, he smiles, occasionally laughs and, in a move that makes me question if we’re going as fast as it feels, takes notes. 0/10 for Holder, I fear. Still, his Japanese script is immaculate. The sports seats really are that cosseting. That a succession of drivers emerge with similar stories of their amusingly unflustered companion says much for his confidence that the Type R is set to flatter rather than bite.

The kerbs are neither large nor really kerbs, more a set down change of surface from smooth Tarmac to broken concrete. But hit them I must, to do my best to learn whether the ride of this new Type R, a massive, rock-hard failing of the old car that made it borderline unliveable-with in the real world, is any more cosseting.

I risk being damned by this time next week, but the feeling, based on not enough evidence, is that it is closer to the right side of supple. What’s more, if there is a compromise to the body roll, grip or stability, I wasn’t fast enough to find it.

The rest of the experience is much as you might hope; the engine is as sweet as ever and the gearshift as delightful. The interior meets expectations and the exterior, well, you either love it or hate it.