Jethro Bovingdon is a professional automotive journalist with 34 recorded laps across 32 vehicles on LapMeta—nearly one-to-one ratio characteristic of professional systematic vehicle testing. Born in the UK, Bovingdon began his career at evo magazine in May 2001 as motoring journalist and road tester, becoming one of automotive journalism's most respected voices. He currently serves as Editor-at-large at Road & Track magazine, previously hosted the U.S. edition of Top Gear TV show, and now presents World Endurance Championship coverage on Max streaming service.
His motorsport credentials extend beyond journalism—remarkably achieving three class wins from five starts at the notoriously demanding Nürburgring 24 Hours, demonstrating professional-level driving competency in endurance racing's ultimate test. His work has appeared in BBC Top Gear, Road & Track, evo, The Telegraph, Auto Express, Automobile Magazine, and numerous international publications. Bovingdon earned a degree in English and History from University of London at Queen Mary. His LapMeta data shows distributed testing: 9 laps Coastal CW, 9 laps West, and 8 laps International GP—systematic vehicle comparison across varied configurations. With 34 laps across 32 vehicles and three Nürburgring 24 Hours class victories, Jethro Bovingdon represents the rare automotive journalist whose exceptional driving skill, endurance racing success, and articulate communication combine to deliver authoritative vehicle evaluations trusted internationally across print, digital, and television media.
Welcome to our PCOTY track notes. These are the stream-of-consciousness scrawlings from our resident hot shoe, editor-at-large Jethro Bovingdon, following his hot-lap sessions in each contender:
There are many bad things to say about the Integra… but luckily they pretty much exclusively center around the seats! Type R seats are always so good, but the chairs fitted to the Integra don’t offer anywhere near enough support. Weird that Honda, ahem, Acura (still sounds weird all these years later to my European ears) would get this wrong.
However, they got so much right. The gearbox is simply joyous, the 2-liter turbocharged engine is strong and still loves to rev right out in time-honored Honda (oh, whatever!) tradition. The chassis has superb poise too, strong traction, and a real appetite for the race track. It’s so neat and precise, the front end absolutely nailed to each apex and the way the front-diff hooks up just when you fear the car might slip into understeer is surreal and very satisfying.
For me, the steering is too heavy in Sport mode and a little bit dead, too. The previous-gen Civic Type R was better in that regard. Plus, I’d like just a slightly more aggressive shift in balance off-throttle – to bring the rear of the car more into play. But the Type S is very impressive and feels like a quality item.
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About PCOTY hot laps:
Our lap times are simple. They are meant to inform us about how these cars perform on track, not to chase an elusive or ‘ultimate’ time that would require multiple sessions in each car. The laps were set after just a few sighting laps and no prior experience on the circuit. Unless a car didn’t get a fair shake, we did one out lap, three hot laps, and a cool-down. Whilst all the cars could go quicker, the times are representative. The delta between the cars would be consistent even with many more laps and sets of tires to burn through.