Today, Honda Motor Co., Ltd. held a press conference about its motorsports activities and teams for the 2023 season. Following is the summary of a speech by Shinji Aoyama, Director and Senior Managing Executive Officer of Honda, and the 2023 motorsports program overview.
Summary of speech by Shinji Aoyama,
Director and Senior Managing Executive Officer of Honda Motor Co., Ltd.
In 1959, Honda competed in the Isle of Man TT Race for the first time, in our company founder Mr Soichiro Honda’s quest to become the world’s number one in technology. Since then, Honda has been competing in various motorcycle and automobile races worldwide.
Many generations of Honda engineers and motorsports team members who came before us faced difficulties repeatedly while competing on the world stage. However, they overcame such difficulties and accumulated victories by taking on challenges without giving up.
This attitude is indispensable for refining our people and technologies in motorsports, and it is at the root of Honda motorsports activities. We will continue strengthening this ‘challenging spirit’ further and keep evolving our motorsports activities with our fellow riders, drivers and everyone who takes on challenges with us.
Carbon Neutrality
In the meantime, Honda has another critical mission to pursue in motorsports. It is the realisation of carbon neutrality. Honda has already been researching and developing technologies for carbon neutrality while proactively leveraging the field of motorsports.
From now onward, we will further enhance our initiatives to put such technologies into practical use in our racing activities. Moreover, starting with motorcycles, we will explore the possibilities of introducing electrified vehicles in actual races where we compete.
Moreover, this year, to become an even stronger racing brand, we established a new structure where Honda Racing Corporation (HRC) assumes responsibility for automobile racing activities and its existing functions for motorcycle racing activities.
As a result of this change, we started seeing some positive effects of mutual collaboration of the technologies and know-how Honda has amassed in motorcycle and automobile racing.
Motorsports
For example, in automobiles, we are currently exploring the possibility of supplying base vehicles suitable for “participatory” motorsports that more people can enjoy more casually. For developing and delivering such vehicles, we can share the know-how of Honda motorcycle racing divisions already engaged in similar activities.
This is just one example, but by leveraging synergistic effects between motorcycle and automobile racing experience to the maximum extent, we will achieve outstanding performance in racing.
At the same time, we will strengthen our initiatives to offer more “participatory” motorsports opportunities which will enable more customers to enjoy Honda technologies and motorsports, and we will strive to popularise motorsports among a broader range of people.
