In the high-octane, drama-fuelled world of F1, only a couple of names have been linked with engine production for longer than Honda. For six decades, Honda engines have been delivering race wins for some of the greatest names in F1, including Nigel Mansell, Ayrton Senna, Jenson Button and Max Verstappen.
With such an impressive racing pedigree, from epic race wins to constructor championship glory, let’s take a flying lap to enjoy some of the greatest moments in the history of Honda F1 and look ahead at the next era of Honda Racing.
"Since I was a child, my dream has been to become the world champion of automobile racing in a car l built myself."
Soichiro Honda
Honda's F1 Debut
Honda’s racing legacy roared into life way back in the 1960s when Honda’s visionary founder, Soichiro Honda, shifted gears, taking his passion and dominance in racing two wheels to four. Driven by an ambition to become a champion in a car he’d built himself, Soichiro set his sights on the 1964 F1 season, developing a plan to supply just the engines. When negotiations to supply the newly developed Honda V12 engine exclusively to Lotus collapsed, focus swiftly changed to developing a full-scale F1 car, and not just the engine, despite being just 3 months out from the start of the F1 season.
The RA271 debuted in August ’64 at the German GP, and the following year the refined RA272 took the chequered flag to win the Mexican GP, delivering its first F1 win, courtesy of driver Ritchie Ginther.
Learn More A triumphant return
Taking a break from F1 at the end of the 1968 season to focus on developing new production cars, Honda returned in 1983 as engine supplier to the Spirit Honda team, before partnering with Williams with a 1500cc V6 turbo engine. British F1 legend Nigel Mansell had been in F1 for years and, despite 71 GP starts, had never had a victory until he moved to Williams, where he won the British GP at Brands Hatch in 1985, driving the evolved FW10B, a moment many will never forget.
The wins soon came in fast succession for Williams Honda, with Honda taking its first F1 Constructors’ title in 1986 with the FW11, and the World Championship title with Nelson Piquet in 1987 with the improved aerodynamic FW11B.
Senna's love for Honda
The next big move came with an engine partnership with McLaren, which led to F1 domination, with teammates Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna winning an astonishing 15 out of 16 races in 1988.
When Ayrton Senna renewed his contract with McLaren for 1992, he said, “I have great respect for the Japanese. I understand their unspoken feelings", affirming that Honda was a major reason he renewed the contract, and unsurprising, when all three of Senna’s titles had been won with Honda engines!
Success continued right up to the end of 1992, when Honda withdrew from F1, with an amazing 44 out of 80 race wins taken by Honda between ‘88 and ’92.
When it was announced that Honda would be suspending its F1 involvement, Senna famously wept when asked for a comment by the media. The season ended on a high however, with the McLaren Honda taking first place in the Australian GP courtesy of Gerhard Berger.
Button, Honda's racing hero
Honda returned to F1 in 2000 with a new focus and passion, teaming up with British American Racing (BAR). Not content just supplying engines, Honda wanted to build cars too, and a partnership was agreed, giving Honda the freedom to co-develop the chassis. Honda Racing Development’s impressive European F1 base in Bracknell brought about other changes, too, such as power steering.
In 2001, the new, lighter RA001E V10 7-speed engines were also being supplied to Eddie Jordan’s team, capable of delivering an astonishing 200mph at high-speed tracks like Monza and Hockenheim.
Jenson Button, who’d been racing Honda-powered go-karts since the age of 8, joined the team at an exciting time and by 2004, BAR Honda had found their groove, with Jenson Button and Takuma Sato notching up 11 podium finishes between them. Fuelled with positivity, Honda bought a 45% share in BAR, leading to the formation of the Honda Racing F1 Team in late 2005 when the remaining 55% share was purchased. Victory finally came in 2006 thanks to Button’s famous victory at the Hungarian GP, bringing Honda’s total wins to a whopping 72.
Environmental pioneer
A 2.4L naturally aspirated V8 RA107 was launched for the 2007 season with a groundbreaking shake-up to F1 livery, thanks to the absence of any sponsors’ logos, instead sporting a planet Earth motif. Designed to echo the ‘Earth Dreams’ project name, it was designed to highlight the environmental issues facing the planet.
Although the project was terminated the following year, in 2009, the renamed Brawn GP team finished developing the car and, together with Jenson Button, they won six of the first seven races and went on to clinch the driver’s and constructor’s titles.
Turbo-charged comeback
An electrifying return to engine manufacturing came in 2015. Reuniting with McLaren, Honda unleashed a brand-new turbo-hybrid power unit.
Soon, other teams wanted a piece of the action, and in 2018, Red Bull Toro Rosso chose Honda for their powertrain, leading to the main Red Bull team making the switch to Honda in 2019.
The results were electric; a podium in Australia and wins in Austria, Germany and Brazil for Max Verstappen, proving Honda was back in the game. With momentum growing, Max clinched his first F1 world championship in a nail-biting battle with Lewis Hamilton, marking an exciting chapter in Honda’s F1 history.
“I think what Honda’s done in recent years with Red Bull is terrific. They’ve won so many World Championships. They’re a fabulous manufacturer, and they put their heart and soul into it. They’ve got a wonderful racing spirit. Soichiro Honda once said that without racing, there would be no Honda. I think that summarised them perfectly.”
Nigel Mansell, F1 legend, speaking with David Tremayne at Goodwood, 2025
Racing towards a greener future
Racing will always be in Honda’s blood, and for the 2026 season, they are entering into a new works partnership with the Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One® Team to supply power units.
The 2026 season will see a big change in F1, with the introduction of new hybrid power rules which require the use of 100% carbon-neutral fuels, plus equivalent power outputs from both the engine and electric motor. This step towards a cleaner F1 aligns with Honda’s global goal of achieving carbon neutrality, a step which Honda is proud to be leading.
More details about our sustainability journey in Europe can be found on our website.
“One of the key reasons for our decision to take up the new challenge in F1 is that the world’s pinnacle form of racing is striving to become a sustainable racing series, which is in line with the direction Honda is aiming toward carbon neutrality, and it will become a platform which will facilitate the development of our electrification technologies.”
Toshihiro Mibe, Global CEO of Honda
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