HONDA The Power of Dreams

The well-known 1983 Spirit Honda 201C heralded the second era of Honda’s F1 activities. With its square side pontoons and huge rear wing, the 201C would not have gained attention had it not been powered by a Honda engine. At the time, Honda may have tended not to care about matching the engine and chassis (or packaging), as the front section was slender and delicate, while the area from the center bulkhead to the rear looked huge.

At the time of its return to F1, Honda’s foremost priority was the engine, even to the extent of sacrificing optimum chassis design. This approach came naturally to Honda, which was only interested in developing the engine on its return to F1. It was, however, extremely difficult to build a top-class F1 engine overnight. Honda must have known from past experience that it would take a considerable amount of time, through repeated prototyping cycles. On the other hand, it also recognized the need for an excellent chassis that could take advantage of a powerful engine. In its first F1 era, Honda wanted the know-how of Lola cars and invited John Surtees, who was familiar with Lola's chassis technology, to join the team. Honda chose to start its second era with a chassis constructor that would allow it to concentrate on engine development while also matching the chassis. It recruited Gordon Coppuck and John Wickham from March Engineering and founded the Spirit Team in 1982, financed by Honda.

Spirit’s first step was to enter European F2 with an original chassis, but at the time Honda’s F2 activities were already centered on Ralt. Honda, which had dominated European F2 in 1981, had no reason to establish a new constructor to compete in F2, so it was clear that Spirit’s F2 entry was not intended as a title contender, but as a stepping stone to a return to F1.

In 1982, although Honda lost the European F2 title to Corrado Fabi’s March BMW team, Spirit’s Thierry Boutsen scored three wins. Considering that the chassis was developed to serve as a test bed for F1, it was a reasonably productive season. The following year, the 201C chassis, essentially the F2 201 chassis re-tailored for F1 use, was powered by a 1.5-liter V6 turbo engine (RA163E), and Honda made its official F1 debut in Round 9, Great Britain.

The RA163E that Honda initially introduced was said to be a super-over square engine configuration having the same bore size as the F2 engine, and its bore x stroke did not seem to match what an F1 engine should be. Its rocker-arm valve train was also adopted from F2. The turbocharger was initially made by KKK, with an engine management system made by Hitachi, soon replaced by a dedicated system (made by IHI).

This year, Nelson Piquet (Brabham) won his second F1 drivers’ title. It was also the first year that a turbo-powered car won the championship. Under these circumstances, the Spirit Honda 201C with Stefan Johansson as driver finished the year with a best result of 7th (Round 12, Holland) out of its six races. The results did not meet expectations, and poor chassis performance was undeniable. Although the engine, in its infancy with development ongoing, had problems in every race, the team lacked a chassis with stable performance, which is essential to refine the engine. The modified F2 chassis was still not strong enough to support the 600-plus horsepower for F1, and Honda realized the need for a new, specialized chassis. Although Spirit had prepared the 101 chassis for 1984, Honda brought in a new partner, Williams Grand Prix Engineering. In a short while, this decicion proved to be the right one.