Doubtful. Some of the recent reviews have indicated that it's heavy and slow. Like I predicted before, the new Ring time isn't anywhere near the old one... something like 25 seconds off.

The money is better spent elsewhere.

 

You could very well be right, however, nothing better than to witness the final product first-hand and that's one thing I hope to be doing in the next couple of years.
As for it's "Ring" track time performance, nothing official yet being released. Once that's out, a final decision will be made. If its actually 25 secs. less than the current UK Type R, Honda should badge it SI instead!!!!!!
Luckily, the deposit given secures my spot. Definitely will be paying both factory published MSRP and destination/freight. Furthermore, as agreed in writing, other than taxes and licensing, there will be no other "dealer added" charges. Its exactly the same way I wrote-up and pre-purchased my GK back in Feb, 2014.
Have to find some things to fill up the two extra underground parking slots purchased with my new townhome. Let's see, if one will be the Type R??? Ah yes, made another deposit on April 2 for the Tesla 3!!!

 

Whoa...what? Oh mannnnnn!

 

What? The Euro Spec CTR holds the record for stock FF around the ring.

 

If you're talking about the 7:50 run from a year ago, that one doesn't count in my eyes. It had pre-production tires and a roll cage, which they insisted was for safety and not for rigidity (though that doesn't mean that it doesn't enhance it, plus it's not like every other production car gets the same treatment), and they removed the A/C to offset the added weight of the roll cage (though they neglect to mention that they're adding a bunch of weight between the axles and removing some from ahead of the front axle which helps with weight distribution). Honda vowed to bring back a production model and repeat their "record" lap time. I think that the recent test ended up being like 8:15.

So yes, it happened, but there are some asterisks on that one.

 

A cage and AC removal won't change things by 25 seconds...and who cares about lap times? An S2000 is probably slower around many race tracks than an STI that doesn't mean I'd rather have the Subaru.

 

You care about lap times, seeing how just one post ago, you were quick to point out how it held the record for the best Ring time by an FF car.

I always knew last year's time was a little fishy and definitely wasn't going to be duplicated, but I wasn't expecting this large of a discrepancy. We're talking about close to half a minute at this point -- which makes the original time look really suspicious, and maybe those changes to their test car are far more significant than they wanted you to think.

Honda wanted to make a splash with that 7:50 time, since it made it look like a serious track-ready car, given what they were comparing it to, as far as lap times go. Now it's not the case, and it doesn't look nearly as serious as it did before, and definitely not for $40k.

 

You really don't understand how any of this works.

The cars setting the flashy lap times almost always have the roll/safety business bc they'd rather not kill their test drivers.

Give me a link to Honda claiming and 8 something and then it matters, until then you're just some guy spreading falsehoods.

 

Wrong. Do manufacturers put in roll cages? They may during a car's development, since it's not a production-ready car and may have some issues that might result in the car potentially being dangerous, as they expect to find areas needing improvement -- perhaps when by no error of the driver the car ends up facing the wrong direction or crashes into a wall. So yes, they're going to protect their driver in the event there's a possible crash since it's a more than likely to happen when they are dialing the car in.

But do they put roll cages in when they are doing Nurburging time attacks? Rarely. I'm not saying it never happens, but it's not a standard practice. Plenty of YouTube footage of the "flashy" Ring lap times shows many of them in bone stock, production spec and without roll cages, from various GT-R lap times throughout its lifespan to most of Porsche's official lap times (usually piloted by Walter Rohl) to the Evo IX provided by Mitsubishi to Best Motoring when they did an 8:11 in 2005 on a damp track. No cages.

I never said Honda claimed the 8:15 lap time, but it was done recently by Sport Auto, who is quite reputable:



Until Honda matches their original lap time like they vowed they would, I'll have to give more credibility to an independent test with a production spec model over the manufacturer's test with a pre-production spec test car with a roll cage but without the A/C (which again is redistributing the car's weight to a more favorable ratio) and on non-production-spec tires.

 

^You know that mag was 35 seconds off Renault's time in the Renault Megane RS, right?

16 seconds off the 918 Spyder time claimed by Porsche.

Etc.

 

That list is not a compilation of THEIR lap times in those cars, just random ones of cars for comparison purposes to see how the CTR stacks up against them. True, not all of them are each respective car's best lap time (such as the 918 -- it did under 7 minutes as you pointed out, but the footage of that lap also lacks a roll cage, by the way), but some of them are from the actual manufacturer's own runs (i.e. Golf R) and not necessarily at the hands of the publication.