The giant that can't let go of F1

Honda's return to Formula 1 is one of the biggest stories of 2015. Whether it wins or loses, the presence of the Japanese manufacturer will generate plenty of headlines. Throughout the months of talk about its comeback, Honda has repeatedly underlined how important racing is to its ethos.

This is Honda's fourth era in grand prix racing, the latest chapter in a story that began back in August 1964, when the little known American Ronnie Bucknum was entered in the German GP.

The company bowed out at the end of 1968, before returning for two further adventures in 1983-'92, and then most recently in 2000-'08. Each time it has disappeared from the scene for a few years and then returned when the time is deemed to be right.

"It's good that Honda are back," says Bernie Ecclestone. "It's a good name, and they're racers. Not many manufacturers are what you call racers, and they are born racers."

Soichiro Honda founded his company with the idea that racing should be a core part © LAT

Motorsport, and especially F1, is in the corporate DNA. That's the enduring legacy of legendary company founder Soichiro Honda, who died in 1991. Even after handing over the reins in 1973 he remained a powerful figurehead, and it says much that the men who succeeded him as president, at least for the first few decades, were his proteges.

Honda's top bosses have also traditionally been racers. Indeed both Tadashi Kume (1983-'90) and Nobuhiko Kawamoto (1990-'98) had hands-on involvements in the '60s F1 team, and subsequent leaders have also spent at least some time in two or four-wheeled motorsport as they worked their way up the company. The experience they gained stayed with them.

That racing spirit is something that anyone who comes into contact with the company quickly becomes aware of. Current Force India CEO Otmar Szafnauer had spells with both Ford and GM before he got to know Honda as operations director of British American Racing in 2000. Two years later he switched camps to become vice president of Honda Racing Development. Working with people who had known Soichiro, he learned a lot about the man.

"The thing that has stuck with me was that the company ethos or personality will sometimes stem back to the early days of the founder," he says. "It was definitely like that at Ford, and it seemed to be like that at General Motors. And it was like that at Honda.

"Mr Honda himself was about a couple of things. One was challenging the best in the world - he wanted to be the best at whatever he did. And two he loved high-end engineering, and especially engine technology."

Szafnauer recalls an anecdote related by company veteran Shoici Tanaka, who joined in 1966, and was Otmar's immediate boss as president of HRD from 2000 to 2005.

"He told me that one of the first cars they built was a two-seater convertible. They were giving feedback to Mr Honda and saying that the roof is leaking, and the bodywork isn't what it ought to be, and Mr Honda said, 'What are the people complaining about? I'm just selling them an engine and the rest of it's free!'

"The point is that Mr Honda was all about high technology and great engines, but at the same time, he was a racer. All of that embodied Mr Honda, and it's still within the company."

Honda's introduction to grand prix racing came at the end of the 1964 season © LAT

Soichiro was an extraordinary character. In a country where consensus and a conservative approach is so often the way, his drive and personality fired the early success of the company.

After World War II there were dozens of nascent motorcycle manufacturers in Japan, but Soichiro made Honda stand out by entering a team at the Isle of Man TT races in 1959. With no experience of road circuits - Japanese races were on dirt - the Hondas were outclassed. The engineers took a close look at the competition, went home, and tried to do it better. Just two years later Briton Mike Hailwood won the 250cc World Championship. Honda would secure at least two titles, and sometimes three, for seven consecutive seasons.

The bike business expanded rapidly, especially in the USA. In 1963 Honda opened Suzuka, which would serve as a test facility for road and racing machines, and in 1964 came an entry into grand prix racing - a bold move for a company that had started making road cars just the previous year.

Its racing activities ensured that Honda was better known overseas than its bigger domestic rivals. The marketing benefits were obvious, but the key was improving the breed - and being seen to do so - by going racing.

"One of the reasons they race is because they want to take on the best in the world," says Szafnauer. "And to Mr Honda it was a measure of how good his company was. If you measure yourself against local competition you don't know how good you are globally. That was his thought process. And F1 is global competition, and it is the pinnacle in technology."

Honda's philosophy has always been to use motorsport to train engineers who then go back and do great things in other areas. The racing department is integrated within the company, which is not the case at Mercedes or Renault.

Despite the proven benefits Honda has withdrawn from F1 on three occasions, each time citing economic reasons and stressing that it was time to focus on production vehicles.

The first absence proved to be the longest. The company pulled out of bike racing in February 1968, and then at the end of a difficult year that included the death of Jo Schlesser at Rouen, the F1 project was also canned.

Successful 1980s-90s stint came to and end after the 1992 season © LAT

Remarkably, given the racing heritage, Honda remained out of top-level motorsport for over a decade. The marque returned to the bike world championship in 1979 with an unsuccessful design, but in typical style the engineers worked away until they got it right. Freddie Spencer won the 500cc title in 1983, and Honda has been a regular presence, and a regular winner, ever since.

Its car racing activities have been less consistent on both counts. In 1980 a 'skunk works' engine project instigated by former F1 boss Kawamoto led to Honda moving into in F2 as a precursor to an F1 return in 1983 - this time solely as an engine partner. The company enjoyed huge success over the next decade with Williams, Lotus and McLaren, but once again there was a bigger picture, and it pulled out at the end of 1992.

The road-car division needed extra attention, and the specific challenge was to keep the company independent in an era when brands were being consolidated into global groups. It was time to take stock.

Through the nineties the company kept a toe in the F1 water via Hirotoshi Honda, son of Soichiro. His Mugen concern supplied various midfield teams, including Jordan.

"We paid £3m for our race-winning engine in 1998-'99, which was a fantastic deal," says Jordan's former commercial boss Ian Phillips. "I think you can say it was subsidised!

"And all the people involved were Honda people. It was a convenient way of them doing it on the quiet and keeping in touch with what was going on. At one stage Honda wanted to buy Jordan, and Eddie said no..."

Honda built and tested its own car in 1999, but the promising project was abandoned. The official return came with BAR in 2000. It went somewhat against the grain for Honda to choose an unproven team, albeit one with unlimited ambition, and there were conflicting views within the company. That was reflected by Jordan being granted works status in 2001-'02, an arrangement that ended when Honda opted to focus on one partner.

The V10 was pretty good, and BAR finished second in the 2004 constructors' championship, albeit some way behind Ferrari. That form encouraged Honda to agree to buy the team from relieved owner British American Tobacco at the end of the season. The philosophy of focusing on engine supply was abandoned.

With the purchase complete in 2006 the team was formally renamed Honda. The new V8 was disappointing, and form took a dive. Significantly, motorsport boss Shoichi Tanaka - one of the last managers who had worked directly with founder Soichiro - had by now retired.

'Earth dream' cars could not build on the solitary win from 2006 © LAT

"Mr Tanaka really was the flag bearer of what Honda stood for," says former team CEO Nick Fry. "My feeling is that after he retired they lost a little bit of that racing spirit."

The next two seasons, when the Earth Dream concept disguised a lack of outside sponsorship, proved to be even worse. Did Honda's management fumble the task of running the team, or was it let down by the key players at Brackley not getting the job done? It's a complex question, but Fry acknowledges that the 2006 departure of Geoff Willis - after a Honda man was named technical boss - was a key moment.

The arrival of Ross Brawn as team principal in November 2007 moved the goalposts. While the following season was a washout, huge R&D resources were deployed in Japan to assist the UK team with the '09 project.

A Japanese Honda aerodynamicist came up with the concept of the double diffuser, and the team was confident that it would make a big step. However, the credit crunch shook the global economy, and on December 5, 2008 Honda announced its withdrawal from the sport.

"The revenue side of the business was shrinking significantly," says Szafnauer. "They didn't see how they could stop the enormous spend of F1 without pulling out. It was, 'we're spending a lot of money, and it's not our core business'. It's a publicly owned company, so they had to do what's right for the business."

"At the time the Swindon plant was shut down for nearly six months," says Fry.

"American dealers were refusing to take cars into stock. It was a crisis situation, and it's fully understandable that something like F1 became discretionary.

"It's a question of focus, and at that time Honda's leadership had to focus on the basic things, and that was clearly preservation of the company."

By handing the Brackley operation to Brawn and his management colleagues Honda appeared to be burning its bridges as far as F1 was concerned. However, the possibility of returning in its former role as an engine supplier was always there.

"Time goes on and you think, 'should I be testing myself again?'," says Szafnauer. "And if it's in your DNA, and that's what your company is about, and they are not in the pinnacle of motorsport, it's only a matter of time before some big boss says, 'shouldn't we be doing this?'

"Also at Honda you retire at 60, unless you have special circumstances. When they quit last time I said, 'in five or six years when the guys who felt the pain of quitting have long retired, Honda will be back."

McLaren was the obvious candidate to partner with for Honda's return to F1 © XPB

Improved economic times and the sport's switch to the turbo power unit were the catalysts. Ultimately the possibility of recapturing a little of the magic of the Senna/Prost era by reuniting with McLaren proved to be irresistible.

Like all other car makers, Honda has endured rollercoaster commercial fortunes over the past five decades, but as it returns to F1 it remains proudly independent, and in respectable health. Last week's launch of the spectacular new NSX was a great PR boost, and hinted at the future.

There are challenges, however. The recall of millions of cars since 2008 has proved both expensive and embarrassing, and it was reported in November that past presidents Kawamoto and Hiroyuki Yoshino (1998-2003) had both been to visit the current incumbent to tell him what he was doing wrong. Their ongoing influence is another sign that Honda is a special company, with a unique history.

"I think they had started to lose a little bit of the racing spirit that was started by Mr Honda," says Fry. "The brand had become a little bit mundane and the products not as exciting as they should be.

"Now they've realised that they have to regain that position of being exciting and innovative, and success in racing is part of that."

"It's a wonderful company," says Phillips. "I suspect the guys I knew have moved on and a new breed has come in, but the commitment from Honda is always fantastic, and it's great that they are back.

"Their history is often that the first stab at it can be a bit wide of the mark. They work phenomenally hard, and they will get it right. Don't underestimate them."