Honda’s Passion
for Motorsports
Challenging the pinnacle of world-class racing
“I pledge with you all to strive with all my soul and ingenuity to enter and win the TT Race.” In March 1954, Soichiro Honda announced his intention to enter the Isle of Man TT Races, a world championship motorcycle road race. This was only 7 years after the company launched its first product, the A-Type auxiliary bicycle engine. Although Honda had already expanded its motorcycle product line with the Dream, Benly, and Juno, it was considered reckless for the company to suddenly take on the world’s most prestigious race. However, Honda had a culture of taking on seemingly impossible challenges from its earliest days.
In 1959, Honda entered the 125cc class for the first time, followed by the 250cc class in 1960. Incredibly, Honda not only won both the 125cc and 250cc classes in 1961, but swept the top five places that year, demonstrating to the world its advanced technological capabilities while creating a sense of unity within the company to share and fulfill big dreams. Motor sports became deeply rooted in Honda’s corporate culture.
In 1959, Honda began construction of Japan’s first fully paved, full-scale racing circuit, based on the belief that technology could be forged through racing. The Suzuka Circuit was completed in September 1962, and the first All Japan Championship road race was held in November. It opened earlier than Japan’s first expressway, the Meishin Expressway.
At the newly completed Suzuka Circuit, Honda unveiled its first concept car, the SPORTS360, which was shown to the public along with the T360 light truck at the 1962 All Japan Motor Show. The T360 and S500 went on sale in 1963.
The year after launching its first automobiles, Honda entered Formula 1, the pinnacle of automobile racing, in the German GP on August 2, 1964, with the RA271, a racing car with both its engine and chassis developed in-house. In October 1965, the RA272 won the Mexican GP for the first time. Honda’s challenge to compete in the most prestigious races, to win and to hone its technologies, was also achieved in car racing.
Racing is a training ground for people and technology
Honda believes that racing is an ideal training ground for engineers, because development is carried out in an extremely short period of time compared to mass production, and the superiority of its technology becomes obvious to all through the race results. It is common practice at Honda that engineers who have developed race engines and race cars demonstrate their abilities in the development of mass-produced vehicles and then return to race development.
With few exceptions, Honda’s engineers develop most of the top-category racing cars themselves. Of course it has the cooperation of its suppliers and partners, but Honda rarely outsources the entire development process to a third party or delegate it to others. This is because it does not lead to the development of its people.
Twelve years after withdrawing from the World Grand Prix (WGP) in 1967, including the Isle of Man TT races, Honda returned to WGP racing in 1979, but struggled so much that it could barely finish races. Despite incorporating unique technologies such as Honda’s original elliptical piston and aluminum monocoque chassis, problems were frequent in actual racing.
Honda returned to F1 in 2015 after a seven-year hiatus since its third F1 phase, but the four years leading up to its first victory in 2019 were a series of struggles.
However, by developing unique technologies, despite it taking time, all paths led to major victories later on.
Challenging a seemingly impossible goal, struggling and striving to achieve victory, and sharing the excitement with others.
This, Honda believes, is the essence of Honda motorsports.