Honda Racing have made a lot of changes to their pair of Honda Civic’s for the 2011 Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship with the most noticeable change being the switch to the NGTC engine.

The team have spent the winter refining the car and are pleased with the progress that they have made during the testing. The car is now fitted with a two-litre turbocharged engine prepared by Neil Brown Engines in keeping with the NGTC regulations which are to come into force in 2013.

Both Matt Neal and Gordon Shedden have tested the car at Snetterton, Donington Park and Silverstone ahead of the new season and are looking forward to the new season.

“The car has lots of potential,” commented Neal. “The new turbo engine gives us lots of torque but it changes the characteristics of the car quite significantly in terms of the power delivery. I will have to adapt to that and the more testing laps we can do, the better it will be. I was happy with how we managed to run at Snetterton particularly.

Neal managed to stick the Honda Civic on the top of the timesheets in the recent unofficial test session at Snetterton ahead of the likes of Tom Chilton and Mat Jackson in the Ford Focus’ of Team Aon and Airwaves Racing who are also using the NGTC engine.

Neal went on to say, “We have also been through a range of set-ups on the chassis and so far, it has reacted exactly as we expected it to. It’s encouraging but we still need to do more running to fully understand the car.”

Shedden, who drove the car briefly in the afternoon at Snetterton and then at Silverstone said, “There are lots of new variables with the different weight distribution and the turbo but we have already seen that the Civic has got massive potential.

“It is important we do as much testing as we can before the start of the season to get the most out of it, but I am happy that we have the basic ingredients in place already.”

The season starts in just over a weeks time when the teams head to Brands Hatch for the season opener but before that we have the Media Day with the first official test session of the season at Silverstone.

You can follow the team throughout the season through the varios social media portals on Twitter (@HondaRacingBTCC) and Facebook (www.facebook.com/HondaRacingBTCC).

Photo Credit: Honda UK Media

James Mappin is the editor-in-chief covering the British Touring Car Championship. You can contact him at james@btcccrazy.co.uk, on twitter @BTCCCrazy or on his personal twitter account @jamesmappin.