Mk8 Volkswagen Golf R vs. Civic Type R | New Car Track Review

[@Grassrootsmotorsports]

Thanks for lots of great comments and questions everyone. I'll try and address several questions here: First, don't get totally hung up on track times as the final arbiter of performance from us or any magazine. They're a great place to start the discussion, but far from the last word. Our testing is all done on OEM tires and at various times of the year, so track conditions can vary. At this point, however, we have a pretty good grip on things and we know how temperature and time of day affect lap times, so if we think there's a condition in the test that could have a dramatic affect on the times, we'll try and mention it. All of our testing is conducted by the same driver, though (me), and by this point I have a pretty good feel for the FIRM and I can usually predict the optimal lap time before the data acquisition can. I can tell you that most of our best times for each car are set in our second session of the day. After the track has been cleaned off a bit by traffic, but before ambient temps become too hot. Lightning Lap comprises multiple drivers and takes place over the course of one or even two days, and the delta at VIR from 9am to 3pm is quite significant. That's not to denigrate their results, just to say that ANY track results are going to have asterisks attached, so keep that in mind when discussing. The data, however, is a better look at what the car is actually doing. For example, with the Golf R, we can see that it generally our dragged the CTR, but the Honda's cornering speeds were higher, particularly at mid-corner, and the CTR also turned in with less speed loss than the Golf. So on a different day, on a different track, those couple tenths of a second could have easily broken in favor of the Civic. Thanks for all the great discussion, though. It's a pleasure being able to bring you these tests -JG Pasterjak, GRM.

[@patmickelson]

In many videos about the Civic Type-R the driver looks like he's bouncing around a lot. I realize one cannot tell much about suspension tuning simply by watching a video of the driver, but I don't ever remember seeing a driver bounce around so much in a car with stock suspension on a smooth racetrack. This makes me think the suspension tuning leaves a lot to be desired on the Civic Type-R. Keeping that in mind, take a look at the deceleration curve of the Civic Type-R beginning at the 18 second mark of this video. It almost looks like a staircase. I wonder if that is because of the suspension tuning and therefore inconsistent grip while threshold braking. I've never driven this track so I can't say for sure. Just food for thought.

[@aw614]

Disappointing to see VW again having their traction control not being "fully off". Doesn't seem like they want to budge their stance on it for NA models, whereas the rest of the world seems to get the fully off option without having to resort to VCDS to flip a few bits...

[@mqbr22]

Great video. You can be in complete manual mode but car has to be In Nurburgring mode. It will bounce of the rev limiter and won’t down shift in any gear unless you down or upshift

[@Grassrootsmotorsports]

So I think I actually misspoke in the video when I said it gives unexpected upshifts. The DSG will hold a gear to the rev limiter, but will occasionally unexpectedly DOWNSHIFT on corner exit if it thinks your exit speed is low enough to warrant a lower gear. It's not always helpful...

[@mqbr22]

@@Grassrootsmotorsports Yea I can see that happening. Like you said a simple TCU tune can solve that problem completely

[@Grassrootsmotorsports]

@@mqbr22 Yep. We're addressing that now as well with our Mk7 GTI project car, too.

[@redrosevisuals]

Own the mk8. Amazing car.

[@Grassrootsmotorsports]

Jealous. It's a great car. Very rewarding for drivers on any skill level, and also legendary Golf practicality.

[@harryhole9mm]

Where is the Civic Type R lap? Which Type R are you referring to FK8/FL5??? No mention of tyres or conditions. Great review

[@The_Opinion_of_Matt]

I scrolled back through the videos on the channel and found a video of the Civic Type R from two years ago. They are likely comparing the times from the runs at that time. Had to look up FK8 and FL5. It is the FK8.

[@tekkaboy80]

It is the FK8 data being used. When the data window is being shown. You can see when the laps were set. One was set in 2022 which is the Golf R, the other is 2020, which is the FK8. Also video description says 2021 CTR (FK8).

[@harryhole9mm]

Cheers both. I missed that info-Appreciate the clarification-I was getting concerned as I’m fortunate enough to have an FL5 in Championship White coming in March and was hoping it might be quicker than a Golf R around a track!

[@Grassrootsmotorsports]

We've not yet tested the new Type R on track, but Honda tells us they expect top have one in the Southeast media fleet rotation within the next month. Typically, we also tend to get track-worthy cars late in their rotation cycles because they'll usually send them in for scheduled service after we test. The manufacturers are all cool with us track testing, but they know we may send the cars back with less tire and brake pad than a reporter from a local TV station or college newspaper would. So the tradeoff for our track tests is we have to wait until just before maintenance to test.

[@kristijankopjar4629]

Can you please tell me which tyres use Golf R and which CTR? Thanks

[@lukedebu5210]

The golf r will either come with Pirelli PZ4 audi spec tires, hankook ventus S1 Evo3s, or the Bridgestone S005s. The CTR either comes with 4s or cup 2s. Either configuration, the Mk 8 is way behind grip, and it's impressive what it can make up being on worse rubber.

[@keithemanuel1072]

Would love to see you test the new RS3. It has the same new rear diff as the Golf R. I haven't tried torque rear on the track, but now it seems like I may need to.

[@Grassrootsmotorsports]

Barring the ability to switch everything off, our best laps were by far in the "drift" mode (even though we did almost no "drifting"). It penalized you the least for rear slip angle, but it still penalized you for front slip angle. So when you got some understeer you couldn't simply power through it the way you'd normally do in a fast FWD car.

[@keithemanuel1072]

@@Grassrootsmotorsports Thanks for the response! I'm not sure if the RS3 allows for less TC than the golf. It turns off a little more if you hold down TC off, but I'm sure some things are still on. Based on your experience with the Golf R, do you think a wavetrac front LSD will be a good upgrade? That is something I'm considering for the future.

[@Grassrootsmotorsports]

@@keithemanuel1072 I'm a big fan of gear-driven diffs in general, but with the amount of processing power the car is putting into diff engagement under a variety of situations I'm not sure it's necessarily a performance upgrade unless you're building a dedicated track car. I think there's probably a lot of performance to be gained from an adjustable E-diff tune before hard parts start getting swapped out.

[@radamesmerced5233]

The Best hot hatch ever to fast and tech

[@kwasikyeremeh3734]

This lap record fall soon to the new CTR .

[@ericmichel3857]

True, but only because it has 265 R compound tires. Slap those same tires on a Golf R or even an older FK8 and I would not be so sure.

[@mqbr22]

@@ericmichel3857 I agree. The biggest issue for the Golf R is the narrow 245’s and the fact that they are not Michelin Cup 2 R rated compound instead it’s just basic summer tires such Hankook or Good Years

[@ericmichel3857]

@@layne4376 That is what R compound tires will do for you. They even proved it with the RS3 when they wrote about switching from the street summer tires to the cheater tires Audi offers, the lap times went from 3:01.9 to a 2:52.5 that is a 9.4 second difference. The problem is you can't realistically run those tires for street use on a regular basis, and anyone that is into tracking a car will have a second set of wheels with R compound tires for track use. I have run my Golf R at my local track on both summer and R compound tires, and it is a short 1.6 mile course and the time difference I see is around 3-4 seconds. So on a much long 4.2 mile course like VIR 9-10 seconds sounds about right. So in any real world scenario comparing apples to apples it is not really faster, and will most likely lose if both cars are on similar tires.

[@mqbr22]

@@ericmichel3857 Yea but people refuse to accept facts and they will just keep disagreeing even tho it’s a fact. The RS3 share the same chassis and rear differential and basically the same transmission. Just makes much more power

[@mqbr22]

@@layne4376 Actually yes I am sure