Tony D’Alberto: “We’re hearing really good things about the new Honda”

Newly crowned TCR Australia champion Tony D’Alberto is looking forward to the new generation Honda Civic Type R TCR which he expect to arrive mid-season 2023.

“We’re hearing really good things about the new Honda,” said D’Alberto in an interview with V8 Sleuth.

“Probably the worst bit is it’s probably not going to be here for the start of the year so you have to start the year in the current car and then swap over, which isn’t the end of the world, but you’d like to start the year with a new car and really give the year a big crack.

“We’ll just have to see what happens. I don’t know just yet what Honda are thinking, whether they have the budget to do it, we’ll just have to want and see I guess.”

D’Alberto raced the tenth generation Honda Civic in TCR Australia this year, a model which made its debut in TCR guise late 2017.

There is no official information from Honda Racing regarding a potential TCR version of the eleventh generation Honda Civic, other than that “any information on the new Type R will be communicated closer to launch“.

D’Alberto says a new generation Civic would be needed in competition against more modern TCR machinery such as the Audi RS 3 LMS II.

“Clearly the new cars are that bit better,” said D’Alberto.

“Jay [Hanson] has shown that with the new Audi in particular, that thing has been an absolut erocket all year, he’s arguably been the fastest package all year.

“I think with other manufacturers, if there’s going to be other cars of the new generation coming in, you have to be in a new car to try to compete with them.”