Even if you’re a diehard domestic lover with a heart made of American iron and spare V-8’s, ‘ya gotta give it up for the Honda Civic Type R. Over the year, the H Badge has worked hard to refine and polish this FWD hero to a gleaming finish, and the latest fifth-generation FK8 that dropped in 2017 at the Geneva Motor Show brings all the tricks and innovation together into a single high-speed package. To prove its worth, the new R’d-out Civic has been on a worldwide tour, smashing lap records as it goes, with the latest fast results coming out of a trip to Portugal.

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The Honda Civic Type R’s latest record run went down at the Estoril circuit in Portugal, where the be-winged compact managed to reset the FWD production vehicle leaderboard with a time of 2 minutes, 1.84 seconds. Check out the onboard footage and telemetry in the video above, where we see the Civic slingshot its way around the track thanks to a solid dose of expert driving. One thing about the video, though - the onboard audio is a little quiet, so you’ll have to fill in the gaps with your own engine noises.

The track in question is 4.2 km (2.6 miles) in length, and includes a variety of different corners, including a few hairpins, a tight chicane, and a front straight that’s nearly 1,000 feet long, all of which provide a diverse group of challenges to test every aspect of the Civic’s performance.

The talent behind the wheel is Portuguese driver Tiago Monteiro, a hot shoe currently employed by the Honda factory team competing in the World Touring Car Championship.

“We came here with a goal to beat the existing lap record set by the previous car but you can never take anything for granted - I mean it’s a lap record so it’s no easy feat,” Monteiro explains in the attached press release. “You have to have supreme confidence in the car to attack around Estoril, and the new Type R is just so powerful, smooth, and confidence-inspiring. We beat the lap record, smashed the record actually.”

This is Honda’s fourth FWD lap record set in 2018, with previous records set at Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium, Silverstone in Britain, and the Magny-Cours GP circuit in France. And, of course, we can’t forget the Type R’s lap record at the Nürburgring last April, where the high-strung hatchback managed a time of 7 minutes, 43.8 seconds.

As a reminder, the Civic Type R produces as much as 306 horsepower and 295 pound-feet of torque thanks to its front-mounted, turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine. That’s no small amount power, which can be especially difficult to handle in a FWD vehicle, creating nasty things like torque steer and understeer, but Honda addressed the issue by blessing the FK8 with a trick dual-axis front suspension, which essentially moves the steering knuckles further from the front MacPherson struts, creating a parallel line between the strut and the upper and lower ball joints. To complement the sporty suspension, the Type R also gets large brakes from Brembo, plus an advanced aero package to help it stick at speed.

Honda Civic Type R Performance Specifications

Further reading

Read our full review on the 2017 Honda Civic Type R.

Read our full review on the 2018 Honda Civic.

Read more Honda news.