HONDA The Power of Dreams

In 1968, while Honda’s UK-based racing team advanced the lightweight RA301 chassis through Japanese-British collaboration, President Soichiro Honda prioritized Honda’s originality at the Japanese headquarters, pushing forward with an air-cooled F1 project. Announced to the press at Haneda Airport just before air transport in June, the RA302 featured a naturally aspirated air-cooled V8 engine. Its absence of a front radiator gave it an avant-garde style. However, the high heat output of the racing engine proved too much for the air-cooling system to handle. During test runs at Silverstone in the UK, John Surtees judged it was not yet mature enough to race. Despite this, unbeknownst to Team Principal Yoshio Nakamura, the car was hastily entered under Honda France for Round 6, the French Grand Prix in early July, and transported to Rouen-Les Essais by a separate crew. The driver was Frenchman Jo Schlesser, active in sports car racing and F2. This race marked his F1 debut.

Rouen, in northern France, featured a 6.5km public road circuit. This marked the first F1 Grand Prix held there since 1964. It was also the finish line for the 1894 Paris-Rouen Trial, the world’s first motorsport event. In qualifying for the French GP, in which 18 cars competed, Surtees’ RA301 set a time of 1 min 58.2s for 7th place. Schlesser, in the air-cooled RA302, clocked 2 min 04.5s for 17th on the grid. Pole-sitter Jochen Rindt (Brabham Lepco) had set a time of 1 min 56.1s.

The race started under cloudy skies, which soon turned into heavy rain. Jackie Ickx (Ferrari), starting from third on the grid and having chosen rain tires, took the lead. Surtees in the RA301, who started on intermediate tires, engaged in a fierce battle for second place with BRM’s Pedro Rodriguez after Rindt and Jackie Stewart (Matra Ford) dropped back, ultimately securing his best result of the season with a second-place finish. Meanwhile, the RA302, making its debut, crashed on Lap 3 after starting from the back of the grid, resulting in the driver’s death.

That year, the Surtees and RA301 retired from Round 4, the Belgian GP, while leading unchallenged. In Round 9, the Italian GP, he retired after contact with another car while in the leading group from pole position. He finished third in Round 11, the United States GP and fifth at the season-ending Mexican GP, where Jo Bonnier was given the spare car. For Honda, its F1 participation structure was divided between the UK and Japan, preventing it from performing at full potential. The difference in approach to F1 between the UK racing team and the Japanese headquarters became pronounced. Honda prioritized the urgent development of passenger cars, leading to the decision to suspend F1 activities after the season. Furthermore, the F1 world was facing a major turning point in its business landscape. Major sponsors from outside the automotive industry emerged, transforming F1 cars into billboards on wheels with liveries taking on commercial significance. Lotus debuted its flashy gold, red, and white Gold Leaf Tobacco livery, and from then on, the traditional national colors rapidly fell out of favor. Furthermore, the Ford Cosworth DFV engine became available for purchase by any team, inevitably changing the relationship between F1 constructors and automobile manufacturers.

Once the season ended, Nakamura announced under the Honda Racing name that Honda’s first F1 era would be suspended after that year. Honda was not alone in leaving F1 after 1968, either. American team Eagle, and Cooper, which had dominated the scene about a decade earlier with the mid-mounted engine revolution, also departed.