A Honda/Acura NSX won’t look bad in racing guise.
Honda plans to introduce a race variant of the NSX. Although the Japanese car maker hasn’t decided yet in which class to compete with the upcoming racing car, a decision will be made in the coming weeks, says Sportscar365. Honda Performance Development Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Steve Eriksen, told the magazine that Honda is currently evaluating the GT3 or GTE (former GT2) platform:
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out. “It was one of the reasons I was at [Road America], to try and get a sense of what the options are and how well those options fit with American Honda’s plans of promoting the car.”
Anyway, we would love to see Honda competing in the GTE series – which also translates in the possibility of running the NSX at the 24 hour of Le Mans race – but the car manufacturer has one more year out of a two-year agreement to race in the Pirelli World Challenge – which will change its regulations to FIA GT3-spec in 2016.
Of course, Honda already has the all-wheel drive Acura TLX-GT racing in the PCW championship, converting it to GT3 specification though wtill most likely compromise its performance, as Eriksen pointed out.
“We’re looking at our options and one of them is to go two-wheel drive. It’s just how big of a tear up is it? You could disconnect your front-wheel drive but is that really going to make a good race car? That’s the question we’re looking at right now. We need it to be competitive because otherwise, why be there?”
Eriksen conceded that “America is likely to be the biggest market for the NSX, so it makes sense to race it here”, thus the GTE class seems like the obvious choice due to its large event coverage around the world, including the IMSA TUDOR United SportsCar Championship.
Anyhow, whichever class they pick to compete in, it won’t show up sooner than 2017 and it won’t have the hybrid powertrain because the regulations won’t allow it.
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