Team of dreams: Honda's rollercoaster racing story

The fearsome Nürburgring in Germany was no place for team and driver to make their Grand Prix debut. The inexperienced American racer, Ronnie Bucknum, hustled the underdeveloped RA271 round the ‘Ring in eleventh place until crashing out four laps from the finish. The next race, the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, offered some encouragement. Bucknum ran as high as fifth before the Honda’s engine overheated. The American lasted 50 laps before retirement beckoned again at the US Grand Prix at Watkins Glen.

Three starts, three retirements. Not the stuff of which racing legends are made. But Honda’s experience in motorcycle racing showed that success could not be expected over night. After all, this was the very pinnacle of motor racing. To break into the sport’s elite would take time, money and determination.

What was the Grand Prix world to make of this upstart moped-maker and its little V12 racer? Certainly, the early outings in Formula 1 did not suggest that one day, Honda-engined racers would humble Ferrari. The potential, however, was there to be seen. Honda’s reputation on two wheels showed the established European teams that the Japanese company could make engines to match or beat the best in the world. The 60 degree V-12, with its four valves per cylinder, roller-bearing crank and 12,000rpm rev ceiling, was a radical design, pushing out some 220bhp. With better reliability’, and a more experienced driver, RA271 could really have given the racing establishment something to think about.

Undeterred, Honda were back in 1965. The luckless Bucknum was joined by new number one driver, Richie Ginther. As test driver for Ferrari and BRM, Ginther knew how to develop and set-up a race winning car. His sensitivity and ability to describe the minutiae of a car’s behaviour were precisely the kind of qualities Honda’s race engineers needed from a driver. Consistent and capable, Ginther would help them to develop a truly competitive machine.

The next three seasons were to prove frustrating. The new 3-litre engine was potent but overweight, and RA273 rarely looked competitive. The RA300 of 1967 was as beautiful as it was powerful but suffered from the same weight problem as its predecessor. Matching the mighty Honda engine to a Lola chassis brought some success, with 1964 World Champion John Surtees taking victory at Monza in one of the most thrilling races of the decade. Beating Ferrari on home ground was satisfying, but fundamental problems remained.

The RA302 of 1968 failed to turn around Honda’s fortunes, and when Frenchman Jo Schlesser was killed at Rouen, the team lost heart. Honda withdrew from F1 at the end of 1968.

In a short space of time, Honda had achieved much. The company had won races, and created the most powerful and technically advanced engines of the day. But the final step, from race winner to champion, had proven difficult. For Honda, Grand Prix racing was to remain unfinished business for nearly two decades.

Dominance on the track would have to wait. Building up the road car business came first. The S360/500 sports car had evolved into the S800, with an engine that revved to 8,000rpm and put out 70bhp from just 791cc. Technologically, the S800 was light years ahead of its antiquated British opposition.

But it was the Civic of 1972 that really established Honda as a big motor industry player. Its neat front-engined, front-wheel drive packaging gave fine road manners and a roomy interior, while Honda’s pioneering of Compound Vortex Controlled Combustion gave exceptionally low emissions. In Europe and the USA, the Civic sold by the shipload.

The Accord saloon and Prelude coupe continued Honda’s remarkable expansion. Sales continued to rise as the company teamed up with British Leyland in Britain and opened a new factory in Marysville, Ohio.

The race for commercial success was being won. But the urge to race for real was still strong. Soichiro had stepped down from the company presidency in 1973, but his successors recognised the tremendous value of Grand Prix racing, both as an image builder and as a proving ground for Honda’s technical brilliance. The return to Formula 1 was inevitable.

Already, Honda had little more to prove. In four years, the company had won 25 Grands Prix, and comprehensively beaten the world’s finest teams. Just as at Mexico City in 1965, the great European marques had been left trailing. Incredibly, better still was to come.

In 1988 Williams was replaced with a new partner: McLaren. The season that followed was unprecedented, and its like will probably never be seen again. With the best car, the best engine, and the best drivers, McLaren-Hondas won 15 of 16 races. Senna won eight times and took the first of his three drivers’ titles, with team-mate Prost finishing second with seven wins. With a scarcely believable 199 points, the constructors’ cup went to a Honda-powered team yet again.

Honda had proven itself undisputed master of the turbo era. If rivals hoped the change to the 3.5-litre naturally-aspirated formula in 1989 would slow the company down, they were to be bitterly disappointed. Ferrari, Renault and Lamborghini had all fallen behind schedule in the development of their non-turbo powerplants, and struggled to be ready for the first race of the new season. It is a testimony to the depth of Honda’s commitment to Grand Prix racing that their V-10 was race-ready as early as October 1988.

The superiority of the McLaren-Honda was almost as crushing as it had been the year before, ten victories giving Honda its fourth consecutive constructors’ championship. It was Prost’s turn to take the title, after a controversial collision with Senna in the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka. Honda’s V-10 powered Senna to the title once again in 1990, while a new V-12 unit brought another championship in 1991.

At the end of 1992, Honda withdrew from Fl racing, job done. From the dreams of a young blacksmith’s son had grown a world-beater. The company which once attached two-stroke engines to bicycles had become manufacturer of some of the best engineered and technologically advanced cars on the road, and an undisputed Grand Prix great. The achievements in Formula 1 speak for themselves. From 1984 to 1992, Honda-powered cars entered 144 Grands Prix, and won 69 of them. In the same period, Ferrari won just 15 times.

But Honda is not resting on its laurels. Mugen, 40% owned by Honda, prepares Formula 1 engines for the Jordan team for whom Heinz-Harald Frentzen won the recent French GP at Magny-Cours. The new British American Racing team will receive full factory power plants in 2000. Watch out, Formula 1. Honda hasn’t finished yet.