Gordon Shedden admits that the testing his Honda team are currently undertaking is critical for them, as Honda prepare to defend their British Touring Car Championship Team’s and Manufacturer’s titles with the new Honda Civic Tourer.
Honda have been carrying out extensive testing of the new Estate model of the Civic, being seen recently at Thruxton and Oulton Park. The team are continuing their extensive pre-season programme at Brands Hatch today (Tuesday).
“We’re still trying to understand the Tourer as much as we did the Hatch,” said Shedden to TouringCars.Net. “It’s got some good points and some points that we still need to work on. We’re getting there.”
Shedden explains that despite the new car using the majority of components of the old Civic Hatch the team have been surprised with the differences the new car has presented them with.
“It feels very different to drive,” explained Shedden. “It’s the same wheelbase and I think we thought it would be a little bit closer to the Hatch than it actually is. The first time we drove it was a little bit of a step into the unknown but I’d say we’re getting ourselves back on the right track. It’s not easy that’s for sure – we’re having to work quite hard at it at the moment.”
“It drives very differently – it feels very different, although it maintains some of the good points of the Hatch. To start with it felt like a big car – it felt like there was a lot of weight back there. I don’t know whether that was psychological or whether that was actually happening.
“We’ve certainly made a lot of changes just to try and balance it up a little bit and I think we’re getting a little bit nearer where we need to be.”
Despite Shedden and the team starting to get to grips with the new car the Scot admitted there were still significant changes to come before the first round of the season at Brands Hatch at the end of the month.
“We’ve got big, wholesale changes to make,” added the 2012 champion. “Matt and I are both on different programmes at the moment – we’ve got that much to cover and we’re trying to take advantage of the nice weather. We’re getting there.
“The engineers are getting square eyes looking at the computers and we’re trying to give them even more to look at!”