HONDA The Power of Dreams

Honda, which ended its second F1 era at the end of 1992, continued to provide Mugen, which had been competing in F1 since that year, with its engine technology. The RA000E was an engine jointly developed by Mugen and Honda, based on the 1991 RA101E, a 3.5L naturally aspirated V10 engine that Honda had been supplying to Tyrrell. The Mugen Honda engine later evolved into the newly designed MF351HD introduced in the middle of the 1994 season, and then into the MF301H when regulations reduced displacement from 3.5L to 3.0L.

In 1998, Honda announced its return to F1 as a factory team, including chassis manufacturing, and established Honda Racing Development (HRD) in Bracknell, England. A test car, the RA099, was built in preparation, powered by the Mugen Honda MF301HC. Honda conducted a shakedown of the RA099 in December 1998, and began full-scale testing the following year with Jos Verstappen as test driver. However, in April 1999, during testing in Barcelona, Spain, team leader Harvey Postlethwaite suddenly passed away due to a heart attack. The loss of the team leader forced a change in Honda’s plans to return to F1, and made the decision to abandon factory participation plans and instead team up with British American Racing (BAR) as an engine supplier for its third F1 era.

During Honda’s second F1 era of the 1980s and 1990s, F1 engine development was horsepower-driven. F1 cars had since seen improvements in aerodynamics technology, and the importance of body dynamics had increased dramatically. Although engine horsepower was important, matching performance with the car was more important. In developing the RA000E, Honda sought to lower the center of gravity to improve turning performance, and also worked to further move the center of gravity to the front. As the engine is mounted mid-ship, the car’s overall weight distribution is heavier at the rear, but Honda shortened the overall length of the engine to increase the degree of freedom in car settings and to keep the center of gravity as far forward as possible. Honda’s developers used the Mugen Honda engine as a reference, but developed the RA000E from scratch for the team’s return to F1 in 2000. Although the RA000E was the same 3L V10 as the Mugen Honda, the V-bank angle was increased to 80 degrees compared to the 72. This was done to lower the center of gravity by widening the V-bank angle. The overall engine length was also shortened from 620mm to 588mm. The bore diameter was also slightly increased from 94.4mm to 95.0mm, while the stroke remained at 42.24mm. Furthermore, engine weight was reduced by more than 10kg from Mugen Honda’s 122kg to 111.8kg, contributing to the improvement of the car’s dynamic performance through overall downsizing.

With the new RA000E engine developed using Honda’s technologies, BAR, which had scored no points in the previous year, finished the season-opener in Australia with both drivers within the points (Jacques Villeneuve finished fourth, and Ricardo Zonta sixth). The “Suzuka Special,” planned for Round 16, Japan but introduced early, qualified fourth in Round 14, Italy. Although the team could not achieve its goal throughout the season of finishing on the podium, Villeneuve took a total of four fourth-place finishes, and BAR moved up from the bottom of the constructors’ standings the previous year to fifth place.