Honda Racing Corporation, Honda’s exclusive racing arm, has announced testing for its latest Super GT machine for the 2024 season, the Civic Type R-GT (which was unveiled earlier this year at the Tokyo Auto Salon).

The new Civic Type R-GT will make its first public debut and track test at the Okayama International Circuit on July 25-26. Honda has been very bullish, aiming for the championship title in the Civic’s first season.

Koji Watanabe of HRC was quoted as saying: “With our constant desire for victory, we will strive to win the championship from the very first year, so please keep your expectations high for the performance the Civic Type R-GT will demonstrate in the coming years.”

The Civic Type R-GT features various aerodynamic enhancements Super GT fans are familiar with, like canards, dive planes, splitters, diffusers, wings, vents, and louvres. But the overall silhouette is unmistakably still that of the new FL5 Civic Type R road car.

Following Super GT regulations, the race car is rear-wheel-driven, and is powered by a longitudinal-mounted 2.0-liter direct-injected turbocharged engine. The Civic Type R-GT is a break from Honda tradition, as predecessors have always been based on Honda’s flagship high-performance purpose-built sports cars.

The Ayrton Senna-codeveloped original NSX raced from 1996 until 2009, followed by the prototype HSV-10 from 2010 to 2013, and again replaced by the ‘new-generation’ NSX that has also reached the end of its career, making a bow at the end of this season.

The Civic is the firm’s first sedan-based competitor in the highly competitive world of Super GT, and will go head-to-head with Toyota’s GR Supra and Nissan’s latest Z in the top-tier GT500 class of Super GT.

It will be interesting to see how the Civic fares on its public test day as revised versions of its competitors will also be testing at Okayama, and will feature aerodynamic enhancements for the 2024 season. Let’s hope racing will be very close and intense next year.