Why Honda's latest Formula 1 exit means it may never come back

It's a universal truth of Formula 1 that manufacturers come and go. With the exception of Ferrari, which has competed in every world championship season, other car makers have flitted in and out over the years.

Whether it is current competitors like Mercedes and Renault, or long gone companies like Ford, BMW, Lotus and Toyota, being a member of the grand prix gang or being outside it has been part of the ebb and flow of any company wanting to sell cars. In that context, Honda's announcement that it is leaving at the end of 2021, can be seen as nothing more than simply bringing to a close its fourth era in the championship.

Its latest spell from 2015-'21 comes after competing with its own team in the 1960s (below), as an engine supplier in the 1980s/1990s, and then again as a works effort in the mid-2000s. For a company that is so committed to its motorsport activities, surely it would be logical to think that the benefits of competing in motor racing's top category would make a fifth era inevitable at some point...

But dig a little deeper into the reasons why Honda has pulled the plug this time, and things look very different. This could be goodbye forever.

Honda walking away is not about it wanting to focus more on road car sales, nor about it being uncompetitive. It is also not about it needing to make some immediate cost savings because of a downturn in the automotive market triggered by a financial crisis.

Instead, this is part of a wider 30-year strategy that Honda's bosses feel they need to execute for the company's long-term survival. In simple terms, Honda wants to be carbon neutral by 2050. To get there it wants two-thirds of its car sales to be electric vehicles within the next decade.

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As Honda CEO Takahiro Hachigo (below) said: "This is not really for consideration of short term revenues and profits."

The world's shift towards a carbon neutral future is nothing new, but what has perhaps changed is the speed by which automotive manufacturers need to get there.

The development path that Honda is taking, and pushing its engineers in, appears to take it in a different direction to F1's own vision for a carbon neutral future. It is a route that ultimately leaves it with no need to compete in F1

For Honda, it knows that if it wants to get ahead of the competition then it must throw all its resources to creating the infrastructure and technology to achieve its aims. Hachigo likened the challenge faced by all the world's car makers as something that happens perhaps once a century.

"Of course we have been doing initiatives to reduce CO2, and to better the environment," he said. "However, the auto industry is going through a time of transformation that's really once in 100 years.

"This speed to really get to CO2 reduction is getting more and more important. So, with the COVID pandemic as well, our thoughts for the nature of the environment has really changed and we definitely would have to accelerate the carbon neutrality path.

"We want to utilise our energy management technology and a few technologies that we have built over the years with F1, plus use the resources of our engineers. We want to direct all of those to the environmental efforts, so that is why we have reached this conclusion now."

F1's current hybrid engine technology was aimed at attracting manufacturers - and that worked in some sense by keeping Renault in for 2014, and luring Honda for the following campaign.

But the huge costs of the complicated technology have never sat easy, and now that Honda has gained the knowledge of what it takes to win, there no longer appears to be the motivation to keep ploughing development costs into it.

It makes more sense for a company like Honda - especially with those 2050 targets in sight - to put those R&D budgets and brainpower from engineers into creating new road car technology. It is why it created an Innovative Research Excellence, Power Unit & Energy department earlier this year.

Hachigo said: "Under such an enhanced R&D system and capability, Honda will focus on the creation of advanced power unit and energy technologies and the realisation of carbon neutrality in the future.

"This will be a challenge as tough and difficult as competing in F1, and it will be a huge challenge Honda must take on, together with society."

The development path that Honda is taking, and pushing its engineers in, appears to take it in a different direction to F1's own vision for a carbon neutral future. It is a route that ultimately leaves it with no need to compete in F1, and with grand prix racing able to offer it little benefit in what it wants to achieve.

Hachigo did not seem too won over by the attraction of more biofuel technology being used in F1, nor does an electric racing series like Formula E excite him for now. In fact, the focus seems purely on 2050 and hitting that target; not whether or not competing in F1 can be attractive once again.

For Hachigo, the potential for this being the end of F1 for Honda forever was put to him during Friday's press conference in Tokyo and the message was clear. Honda will keep racing; just don't expect it to be in grand prix racing

So after potentially being out of F1 for 30 years, it is hard to think that Honda would suddenly see the need to get itself back involved if it has made a success of its road car business. It was not lost on many the careful wording that Honda used on Friday. In 1992 (above) it decided to 'pause' its F1 involvement. In the 2000s it was a 'withdrawal'. Now it has stated that it is 'concluding' its involvement in F1.

For Hachigo, the potential for this being the end of F1 for Honda forever was put to him during Friday's press conference in Tokyo and the message was clear. Honda will keep racing; just don't expect it to be in grand prix racing.

"We want to realise the company's carbon neutrality [aim] for 2050," he said. "So that's where we want to reach, and we will place our resources toward that.

"I am not thinking of us re-participating in Formula 1. But racing is in Honda's DNA, so for other races that Honda is participating in currently, we will continue those with our typical passion."