Alexander Rossi is best known as the last American to race in Formula 1, as well as being an Indianapolis 500 winner—a race he won in his first year driving in the series, for what it’s worth. One thing you likely wouldn’t expect him to do: Bring a new Honda Civic Type R to Hoonigan’s Donut Garage to do silly things in a car for Hoonigan’s “Daily Transmission” video series.
As it turns out, Alex does not need anyone to peer-pressure him into having fun with this hyper Honda in Hoonigan’s lot. After giving a quick overview of the Civic Type R in which he raves about the cars many performance features—such as VTEC combined with a turbo and the auto-blipping rev match feature and allows you to shift better than 99 percent of drivers, including him—he then hops in the Type R and does oh so many burnouts. He runs his Type R in an old-school Le Mans homage race against a Honda S2000, and even jumps onto the Type R’s roof in victory.
According to the Formula 1 alumnus-slash-Indy 500 winner, the red seats belts are the best part of the car. Red seat belts equals race car, right?
Considering the current dealer markups on new Civic Type Rs, most cars will more than likely end up being garage queens that are driven gently to your local Cars & Coffee, so it’s refreshing to see one being treated so “nicely.” Besides, it is nice to see some car-related activities performed on private property by skilled drivers that don’t end up becoming the joke of the Internet.