Honda Racing Recap, August 13-14: RealTime Wins at Last

A sprint-round win for NSX GT3 highlights weekend for Hondas racing around the globe.

The GT-racing NSXs have racked up lots of success lately. The Michael Shank Racing Acura NSX GT3s picked up a pair of wins in the last two months. Two weekends ago, the ARTA NSX claimed Honda’s first Japanese Super GT win in two years. And last weekend, RealTime Racing’s NSX GT3 scored their first big results. With the pending global sales of NSX GT3s, this could be big for Honda’s international racing programs.

Pirelli World Challenge at Utah Motorsport Campus

RealTime Racing claimed the team’s first win with the Acura NSX GT3 in the weekend’s first SprintX race. Peter Kox put the #93 NSX on pole and drove away from the field early in the race. He handed over to teammate Mark Wilkins, who rejoined in second place behind Nicholas Schiro’s Ferrari 488 GT3. Wilkins capitalized on Schiro’s spin and then fended off late-race charged from the Italian racer.

Wilkins and Tom Dyer in the second RealTime car, #43, started from second and third on the grid in Race 2. Neither had any answer for the Schiro/Mancinelli Ferrari, although Ryan Eversley finished runner-up by only 0.9 second. A punctured tire ruined the race for Wilkins and Kox in the #93.

In the Touring Car (TC)-class races, Shea Holbrook returned to the TCA class with her Shea Racing Civic Si. Holbrook won the class Race 1 despite an off-track excursion. She fought back to get around Elivan Goulart’s Mazda MX-5 Global Cup late in the race and held him off for the win.

The second TC race looked promising for Shea Racing after Tom O’Gorman and Holbrook put the team Civics 1-2 as they navigated around a Turn 1 crash. However, O’Gorman fell back to fifth by the checkered flag and Holbrook retired with just three minutes remaining.

MotoGP at Austrian Grand Prix

After racking up his third consecutive pole in Austria, Marc Marquez couldn’t quite hold on for the race win. Ducati rider Andrea Dovizioso snuck past Marquez with seven laps to go, which prompted an all-out brawl to the end. The two fought an epic battle through the race’s closing stages. Despite Marquez’s desperate last-corner lunge, Dovizioso held on by just 0.176 second to win.

Marquez’s Repsol Honda teammate Dani Pedrosa closed on the lead duo while they defended and attacked. He narrowed the gap to just 2.4 seconds to take the third spot on the podium. Marquez still leads the championship by 16 points ahead of Dovizioso, who moved to second in the standings after his win.

British Touring Car Championship at Knockhill

The BTCC headed north to Scotland this weekend and the Honda Civic drivers suffered through a challenging trio of races. Gordon Shedden qualified best of the Hondas in ninth and would lose two spots in Race 1. His teammate, Matt Neal, however, charged from 21st on the grid to finish ninth. Neal again found himself in the middle of the Race 2 action, however, part of that came in the middle of a red-flag-inducing crash. Josh Price’s Subaru would eventually send Neal off into the gravel for a DNF while Shedden settled for a sixth-place result.

Shedden picked up a podium in Race 3 while dicing with Tom Ingram’sToyota. Ingram held on for the win, but Shedden reclaimed some valuable points over championship rivals Colin Turkington and Rob Collard. However, Turkington’s three podium finishes on the weekend vaulted him to the series lead while Ash Sutton’s victory demoted Shedden to third in the points.