Past Events
Goodwood 2005
Goodwood 2005
John Surtees Talks about Honda
John Surtees driving his former favorite car, the RA300. He was unable to drive on Sunday due to slipping on oil spilled on the track during his Saturday run and damaged the car’s body.
This year, it was John Surtees who took the steering wheel of the RA272 and sped around the track. He was signed by Honda in 1966, and was its star driver of the 3-liter era.
At the time of signing his contract with Honda, Surtees was a superstar, having won the World GP motorcycle championship with MV Agusta and the F1 championship with Ferrari. Why did Surtees decide to sign a contract with a new team from the Far East and run with the Japanese flag?
“Ferrari and I won the F1 championship, but midway through the season, political problems arose and our relationship deteriorated, leading to my departure from the team. At that time, I chose Honda among other options because I was intrigued by the fact that my background of coming from motorcycles to cars overlapped with my own. In particular, I had been following Honda’s track record of success in motorcycling for some time, and it seemed like the perfect opportunity for me to take on a new challenge.
Since they didn’t have the experience of the other teams, the process of building everything together was truly motivating, as if we were being welcomed into a new family. I think it was great to be able to drive a machine with the Japanese flag on it. I was proud of Honda’s commitment to representing Japan, and I thought it was a symbol of nationalism, and I even wished more and more other countries would wear the colors of their nationality.
What was it like for Surtees to join the Honda F1 team from Japan, a country so far from his own?
“I remember my own experiences with Honda back then, and seeing Honda as the company it is today, I have a new appreciation for its philosophy.I think Honda always had in mind the policy that by going to the races and proving its technical capabilities, it would ultimately lead people to want to buy a Honda. In the field of motorsports, they not only showed off the technical aspects of their race machines, but also focus on training the engineers so that they can continue to pass on these technologies to future generations.
1967
The F1 Grand Prix adopted 3000cc engines, and Honda signed a new superstar, John Surtees, as its star driver. The first generation RA273 was a large and heavy machine that did not take full advantage of the engine’s performance, but the RA300, introduced mid-season, gave Honda its second win in its debut outing, the Italian GP. Honda engineers had already set their sights on the series championship.
As a result, Honda assigned more in-house engineers were involved than its rivals, which may have taken more time to be reflected in the results on track. However, as a company, I think we have succeeded in building a management system with competent engineers for the future. We must not forget that Honda is not a company that manufactures race machines, but one of the few car companies that take the technology gained from racing and applying it to make better production cars.”
It has been 50 years since Honda debuted in international racing. Today, Honda continues to compete in motorsports and create legends with the support of its fans around the world.
Asked what it was like to drive the RA272, Surtees smiled and said, “The RA272 has a wheel on each corner, but it feels like a big motorcycle. It has a really nice sound. The people who come to Goodwood are not so much watching the race as they are enjoying the sound, so I intentionally shifted gears up and down to let them hear the sound. At Goodwood, people of my age come to see the cars of that era with nostalgia, but there are also many young people who have no knowledge of these cars. This is a unique place where the past and the present are combined and further connected to the future.”
Racing Colors Etched in Motorsports History
“Racing colors” that have graced the circuits throughout the history of motor sports gathered again this year at Goodwood, to interact across time and space. This year, Honda was at the center of the event. In fact, Honda was constantly surrounded by the 150,000 enthusiastic racing car fans, young and old, who came to Goodwood. The eyes gazing at these legendary machines were filled with admiration, passion, wonder, and excitement.
Today, racing tracks are decorated with logos of various sponsors, and the good old days of the national colors are but a distant memory. However, the ivory background with the rising-sun flag that Honda brought to F1 was “racing colors” etched in the history of motor racing, which is deeply rooted in Europe. With more than 50 years of international racing on motorcycles, and 40 years since its first F1 victory, Honda is continuing to build on its motor racing history.
This year, enthusiastic fans from neighboring countries once again gathered at Goodwood to listen to the legendary Honda music. Some of them were already familiar faces.
