This car trivializes the game, if you’re the only Honda Beat in the lobby you’re pretty much playing alone, as no one will come close to you. This becomes worse if the track is a sprint.
Some people are comparing this car to FH5 Boneshaker, but in all honesty the Honda Beat is leagues ahead the Bone Shaker in terms of unfairness. Againt the Boneshaker you could beat it with top speed and tighter turns, but the competent Beat player will never fear this scenario because how BUSTED it is.
At this point probably everyone who spent at least an hour in Horizon Play is now aware of this little big problem. The online road racing is basically ruined. If the player using it is half-decent, this is it for the rest of the lobby. The flying shoping carts on drag tires completely breaking the immersion. I know there were meta cars before and will be after. But this was never on THAT level of ridiculousness. Can we get a nerf on the car or drag tires? This has to stop.
Speaking of online racing, what annoys me is how broad the vehicle selection restrictions are. Basically, you only get two pieces of information: for example, the car has to be class A, and it’s an off-road race. That leaves a huge number of cars to choose from, and more than once I’ve found myself unable to decide which car to use for the race.
What I mean is that there should be a third restriction based on the vehicle category, like in seasonal events. That way there wouldn’t be situations where you pick an A-class car from a retro category that simply has no chance against a modern car. There are exceptions, of course, but I think you get what I mean.
Edit:
That would also reduce the problem with the Honda Beat, because then that car would only be selectable in race types like Eclectic Domestics or Japanese cars.
And here I have been fuming that you can’t put the ragtop down on the Beat. Hearing all of this is really quite frustrating. Hopefully it’s a problem they can do something about sooner than later!
Well, considering they payed zero attention to the most imbalanced issue in the game (tires) I’m not shocked that an issue like this has popped up.
Yet again, I see a situation where fleshing out the single player, and in this case, convoy only endgame would help significantly.
With convoy only endgame fleshed out, you’d start to get communities forming, communities who can enforce rules that PGG simply cannot. Rules like banning the Honda Beat, or banning drag tires in road racing, or both! Communities can react much faster to obvious issues like this, and enforce solutions with more nuance and less widespread consequences.
Add in a club system with proper inter-club and club vs club systems, and you’ve got something that will provide a way more engaging experience and keep the game exciting for far longer.
But instead we’re still catering to the fantasy of online gameplay, where everyone can have fun playing with everyone, as opposed to the reality, where somebody will always take the path of least resistance to victory and optimize the fun out of the game.
With proper club endgame, we could easily work around balance issues like this and still have engaging online gameplay, but instead we have to live with it and hope PGG will wake up to the issue. That’s not a good situation for either us or the devs.
Just a prime example of horrible game design and it’s consequences.
None of that is really related is it 
you’ve just thrown Honda Beat and drag tires in that post as an excuse to soapbox to everyone about other more general aspects.
I highly doubt you have any first-hand experience of the car in the context that this thread is about.
The Beat surely is the prime example but the whole online racing is pointless.
I think I’m not among the slowest players out there and always did well in normal cars/builds but this time nope.
Either play the meta game or race with yourself or players in meta cars that confuse throttle with brakes. B600 FWD Drags Honda City E is like 15 seconds faster on a 2 minutes track than a normal FWD build.
Only the stock races are somewhat fun.
PI calculation for centrifugal superchargers is more broken than ever. Adding 72kw to the 5.2l V10 added like 3 PI to my A800 RS6.
It’s very related. I’m just trying to move past the symptom and tackle the root cause.
People will always optimize the fun out of the game, and banning particular cars is at best a mediocre solution that weakens the overall game. I don’t know about you, but I still want to drive the Honda Beat, but I don’t want to win easily with it. PGG has proven incapable for whatever reason of tackling obvious balance issues, so I came up with a valid alternative. The fact that it has other benefits as well is great!
Not that it matters, but I have been playing online, and not just because it’s on the playlist. I prefer to test my builds in a race environment to see how the car reacts to dynamic elements, and I’ve found the AI to be too… odd in this title to be an effective test.
Besides I always give online a chance each new iteration. I’ll probably use it more this time, just due to a lack of alternatives.
I never used that Honda Beat for once, because i found ugly. I almost never drive a car because it’s meta or OP, I only drive cars that is aesthetically pleasing and good. And most time, I am in the 6th or 7th in the race, I don’t care LOL. maybe it’s just me 
So we’re on the same team hahaha 
. I’ve never really used that Honda either, and honestly I don’t remember ever seeing anyone online racing with that car. As for race positions, I usually aim for 6th or 7th place xD Though sometimes I even manage to get 4th.
But after this whole Honda topic, I got curious and bought 3 of them — converted one to B class, one to A class, and one to S1 rally spec. Haven’t actually used any of them yet, although that S1 version with the Pikachu livery is seriously tempting LOL 
Oh, this is the cancel culture generation: “I” don’t like this car; “I” think it’s cheating! Give me a break; it’s a cheap and fun car to drive. If you don’t like it, go grab a Prius. The “Beat” Goes on
It’s a game, it should be balanced. I will enjoy this car when it doesn’t play like it’s from a class above the competition.
If the only way you can get good positions is with the Beat, then I have terrible news for you.
Okay, I drove that Honda around a bit, and yeah, there’s definitely some kind of wink to fans of small Japanese cars in there. It drives like a remote-controlled toy car on some serious steroids. 
Confirmation bias with a smidge of global skill issue. The Beat is not unique.
Any car you can build with similar power to weight ratio, mechanical weight position, and G-Tolerance will match its performance. It is simply the easiest to build."
Edit: FWII everyone reading this. The physics system has not changed that much. AWD is still on top due to the granularity it gives you over your slip settings per axle. G Tolerance and Power-to-Weight should be your focus, NOT getting the numbered stats up.
Ok, answer me this…how many cars in game have larger than 300 width tires for the front end? Less than a handful. With Drag tires still being the wonder rubber of the world, adding tires larger than 300 in the front makes for a monster. Especially when the PI doesn’t reflect it properly.
I was just setting decent lap times at the DIRT time attack with drag tires on, something is definitely broken (but it has been for a number of releases now).
Putting those extremely wide tires on is to make up for bad drivers. You can get more speed with less PI without them, from my testing. While they can help, again… any small, mid-engine car with similar Hp-to-weight and Mechanical Positioning will preform the same way if tuned properly. Thats just if you want something to act like a Beat. You can also take those wide tires off, add more speed. In more skilled hands the car preforms better than a grip-focused tune.
Try the NSX next.
I seen a huge variety of other cars dominating races. The Beat is not OP on its own, its just very very easy to tune. Plenty of other cars will net you the same results if you know what you are doing.
A few days ago, I unlocked the Shelby Cobra from the car collection rewards, and I have to say: it’s small, but it’s an absolute monster! Get a good tune on it, and its performance can be seriously impressive.
It needs to be because I’m not playing it anymore till it does. Bone shaker from 5 now this. Nah thanks. I like me clean racing not some over powered car
MX-5s are a little hard to drive but reward you with absolutely gaping the field, including the beat.
Top speeds of 200+ and the acceleration+grip to back it up in Class B/A is insane.
AWD still dominates RWD in nearly every scenario — whether it’s circuit racing or sprints. The traction advantage out of corners is massive, while the difference in top-speed acceleration on straights is minimal. Maximum speed itself rarely matters, especially in Class A and below, since you almost never reach it. A perfect example: the Toyota Trueno, a car famous for its slip-grip cornering — where the rear slides slightly but the car stays on trajectory and actually accelerates through the turn — is significantly faster when built as AWD. I’m not claiming RWD should be faster overall, but it should at least have a fighting chance on straights — a meaningful speed advantage that rewards the trade-off. Right now there’s no real reason to run RWD at all.
Rally tires reducing a car’s PI rating makes sense on paper — but the problem is that this reduction doesn’t come with any actual performance penalty on tarmac. Which means you can run rally tires, fit into a lower class, stuff in more engine power, and still have competitive grip. A downgrade that doesn’t downgrade anything is just a free exploit. I tested this with the 2017 Ford Fiesta — a rally-cross style car that already comes with off-road oriented stock tires. Switching to slicks should give a clear grip advantage on tarmac. It doesn’t. The stock tires still outperform slicks on road grip. If slicks can’t beat stock dirt-oriented tires on a dry asphalt track, something is fundamentally wrong with how tire compounds are calculated.
I want to add my voice to the ongoing discussion about the Honda Beat — but I’d also like to highlight that the Corvette C8 is arguably even more broken. I’ve been able to beat Honda Beat drivers in a C8 with ease, which says a lot given how dominant the Beat already is. Both cars appear across multiple classes simultaneously (B, A, and even S1), and lobbies are flooded with them. This suggests the issue isn’t just these specific cars, but the PI calculation system itself — particularly how it handles power-to-weight ratios and drivetrain configurations. A single car dominating one class is a balance issue. Multiple cars breaking multiple classes at the same time is a systemic problem that needs a proper fix, not a one-off nerf.
To summarize — online modes are simply unpleasant to play right now.