Honda has revealed the new 1.6litre turbocharged engine which will power its Honda Civic WTCC race car, which is due to make its debut at Suzuka in October.
The HR412E has been developed at the Honda R&D centre at Tochigi, Japan and is completely bespoke and built to the FIA World Touring Car Regulations.
“In the continuous technological development of an internal combustion engine, the thermal efficiency is the essential key for improvement,” explained the WTCC Development Project Leader, Daisuke Horinchi.
“And a race engine is not an exception. This HR412E was born from such thought process: aiming for higher efficiency. The HR412E heralds a new generation of high performance racing engines from Honda.”
The engine has been delivered to JAS Motorsport in Italy, where the car has been developed and has passed all of the important tests.
“All engineers at the R&D centre in Tochigi have worked hard to develop a race engine that will deliver great driveability to our racing drivers, with no compromise on peak power performance,” continued Horinchi.
“We believe the innovations that have led to this revolutionary engine will also lead to benefits beyond the race track, helping us to further increase the efficiency of our road car engines.“
Honda has already confirmed that their driver line up will be Gabriele Tarquini and Tiago Monteiro. Monteiro will race the car in the final three events of the season, starting at Suzuka while Tarquini will only test the car before joining full time for the 2013 campaign.