Honda pushing to escape BTCC rivals

British Touring Car star Matt Neal and his Honda squad are pushing forward with developments to the Civic because they believe rivals will close the gap in 2013.

Honda swept all available BTCC titles with its new NGTC Civic last season, with Gordon Shedden and team-mate Neal finishing one-two in the drivers’ standings.

Despite the strong campaign, in which the Civic took 14 wins, Neal believes improvements will be needed for this year.

“We’ve been working hard in all areas of the car during the break,” Neal told AUTOSPORT. “We’ve not stood still over the winter.

“I expect the level of opposition to be a bit higher and for that reason we have to push to make sure we’re still tough to beat.”

Neal believes the 2012 performance of the Civic will help others push forward with their own cars.

“We were the first to understand the NGTC regulations and get on top of everything,” he added. “Everyone has seen our car now and will have had the winter to improve.”

Neal confirmed some of the improvements concerned “optimising the engine for the regulations”.

The Civic spent most of 2012 on its low baseline turbo boost level.

2013 British Touring Car line-up so far:
 
Team                   Car                     Drivers
 Honda (Team Dynamics)  Honda Civic             Gordon Shedden/Matt Neal
 MG (Triple 8)          MG6                     Jason Plato/TBA
 Motorbase Performance  Ford Focus              Mat Jackson/TBA
 WSR                    BMW 1 Series            C Turkington/R Collard/N Foster
 Team HARD              VW Passat               Tom Onslow-Cole
                        Vauxhall Insignia       Jack Goff/James Cole
 Speedworks Motorsport  Toyota Avensis          Dave Newsham/TBA
 Ciceley Racing         Toyota Avensis          Adam Morgan
 IP Tech Race           Chevrolet Cruze         Andy Neate
 AmD Tuning             VW Golf/Vauxhall Astra  TBA
 Rob Austin Racing      Audi A4                 Rob Austin/Will Bratt
 Eurotech Racing        Honda Civic             Andrew Jordan/TBA
 Dynojet                Toyota Avensis          Frank Wrathall
 

Source: http://www.iracing.com/inracingnews/other-news/touring-cars/btcc/honda-pushing-to-escape-btcc-rivals

Brian Gubby André Guelfi Miguel Ángel Guerra Roberto Guerrero Maurício Gugelmin