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Video: This LMP2 car only ever raced once but laps Donington in under a minute

18th September 2024
Ben Miles
The outright lap record at Donington Park’s national circuit, unofficially, is held by a Formula 1 car. And we think that makes this onboard, with a near-decade-old LMP2 car, even more impressive.

Sadly, there’s scant info about who is driving. But we can tell you that the car is the HPD ARX-04, a very short-lived LMP2 car that was designed for the last set of LMP2 regulations.

In its day, it wasn’t very good. In fact, after one event and one test day the team that had chosen to race it in what is now IMSA, binned it off for a Ligier JS P2. After that, it resurfaced a few times and then disappeared from top-level sportscar racing forever.

But, it’s not back in historic racing, it’s been seen at places such as the Silverstone Classic over the last few years racing in the various championships that allow more modern prototype racing cars to take part. And the nurturing hands of historic sportswear companies seem to have done the HPD a world of good. Because now it looks sensational in action.

You just need to watch this onboard to see what we mean. The speed with which the driver can take some of the most daunting corners at Donington, especially the Old Hairpin and Coppice, is extraordinary. And it doesn’t look like massively hard work. In fact, although he definitely hits pretty much every apex, it makes you feel like there might be even more time in the car one day.

HPD of course still exists, but it merged into the main Honda corporation to become what is now Honda Racing Corporation. None of that means anything to most of you, but in short, it builds the Acuras that race in IMSA now. It probably doesn’t look back on the ARX-04 as one of its fondest memories, but we’re very glad someone has enough love for it to keep it alive.

Oh, and that Formula 1 car? Well it depends on who you talk to. Some sources cite a Benetton B197, while Rodin Cars claims that its pretty-much-a-Formula-1-car FZED set the unofficial record. We’d like to see that onboard…

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