Honda Civic Type R

Originally Posted by ZCanadian

It is a bit off topic, but I kind of disagree with your first point, at least the cornering bit. AWD, especially on a properly torque vectored system, can give you an incredible advantage coming out of the corners. And that is especially true of higher HP cars and heavier cars like the GTR. Late braking is "4-wheel drive" on all cars and saves you maybe a few hundredths of a second, but coming onto the throttle earlier after the apex may gain you a few tenths. The more stable the car is under acceleration, the harder you can get into it before track-out. What 4WD gets you in that respect is that it lessens the likelihood of throttle-induced oversteer/understeer (and the resulting correction which usually involves some time off the throttle). I'm sure that a better driver than I would be able to do the same thing by simply rotating a rear-wheel drive car more at the apex, but most of these cars are not sold to or intended for professional racing drivers. The ones that do go to a racing home get tweaked anyway.

And my comment about the weight means that you HAVE to get on the gas sooner in order to get the corner exit speed up. The GTR has a lot of mass to accelerate, so the sooner you start fighting inertia the better.

The other thing that AWD will do for performance is give you maximum grip on all 4 for acceleration. In a FWD/front engine car, the rear wheels are essentially only there to keep the back bumper off the ground. Why not put some torque to them. Added advantage is that it will probably even out the tire wear front to back (not that anyone truly racing this car will care that much).

If you've ever driven a 4 wheel drive car in anger, back to back with its 2WD sibling, you'd probably have felt what I'm talking about. It isn't advertising (and no, I didn't just drink the Kool-Aid, LOL). ;-)

But I agree completely with your point that for most people the AWD system on the Civic Type R will be for safety. And that's a good thing. It just happens to be a party trick for the track as well. And your other points are right on, as well.