A report
Last friday, I have had the chance to see and hear that car in reality.
I was guest at pit No 15, in which only HONDA’s were parked.
2x S2000, 1x CTR and the JGTC NSX.
I meet Georg (GS team manager), Horst (sport-auto magazine chief editor) and Armin Hahne (NSX LM race driver)
the only pilote for that test day.
This white flounder looks so amazing and the sound of this race car is awesome.
The Hewland gearbox sang a nice song too, a fantastic composition.
Even the roll out through the pit lane was an eye and ear catcher, the most people around were focused.
I dont have expected that, because middle of last week, the car got a huge sized muffler and 2 unusual looking tips.
The dampers were still the japanese units, (brand ??) but in the evening an engineer from KW suspension was in the pits too.
For the next test and race in 2 weeks, its quite sure that a new suspension will be installed.
But the japanese version worked very well too, I dont wonder !, and so I dont know exactly the reasons for this replacement.
It was nice to see how the engineers fixed some tape around the springcoils to see if the springs will touch on block somewhere and with the cablefixer at the damper piston rods they could test the maximum dipping. Nice ideas to do suspension setup.
The Dunlop (D7) tires they got from Holland (not available in Germany) and it seems that this is the only tire and compound, which is available for that car. A hard compound which is into the upper 1/3 range.
That could be problematical at night, if the temperatures are going down. Maybe they will get a softer compound from somewhere.
After 7 laps at the northern loop with sunny weather, the tires looked like new with small regular wear out.
Armin Hahne told after that test about too much downforce. ??
The most corners he could take into 4th or 5th gear and after short time he reached topspeed (260km/h) at the 6th. Into the corners it was the fastest car, I wonder ?
Honda has ordered another JGTC rear wing from japan with more high speed profile for the next test/race (14/15 May)
If my informations are right, the NSX couldnt start the race, because the officials are missing a new FIA stamp in the papers
for the rollcage.
Funny to see all that other cars with standard rollcages have the permission to race and the JGTC championship winner from 2002 with additional Dome side impact protection system is missing a stamp.
