Honda Motor Co., Ltd. today held a press conference about motorsports activities and teams for the 2022 season. Following is the 2022 motorsport program overview and a summary of a speech by Toshihiro Mibe, Director, President and Representative Executive Officer.

Toshihiro Mibe, Director, President and Representative Executive Officer Honda Motor co., Ltd.

'From the days of its founding, Honda has grown up as a company with racing and has been developing its people and technologies through racing. The Honda 'racing spirit,' which has served as the basis for Honda's commitment to winning in pursuit of its dreams, has been handed down from the company founder to the Honda associates of today, while overcoming a number of difficult challenges taken on by past generations of Honda associates. In that sense, motorsports is a major embodiment of Honda corporate culture. Always keeping that in mind, Honda will continue this challenge by racing in a variety of categories in the 2022 season.

In order to strive to make motorsports sustainable and more attractive for everyone, we will take on challenges in other areas such as carbon-neutral fuels and combustion technologies, in addition to electrification. Technologies we refine through motorsports will be incorporated into various products, not only for motorsports, which will continue to support future Honda.

Starting this season, Honda will further strengthen its motorsports operation and capability by adding automobile racing activities to Honda Racing Corporation (HRC), which has been operating Honda's motorcycle racing activities. This will enable Honda to achieve mutual collaboration of the technologies and know-how Honda has amassed in the respective areas of motorcycle and automobile racing and increase the efficiency of motorsports operations. With this change, Honda will conduct its motorsports activities with a goal to establish itself as an even stronger racing brand, through which Honda will establish a robust foundation that ensures continuous inheritance of motorsports as part of Honda DNA.

In order to fulfill the expectations of motorsports fans and Honda fans and customers all around the world, we will continue devoting our energy to motorsports, through the 'new' HRC that integrates our motorcycle and automobile racing activities. Moreover, Honda will continue taking on new challenges so that we can continue sharing dreams and exciting and inspirational moments with our fans and customers.'

[Motorcycle activities]

In the 2021 season, Honda snatched the overall win in the motorcycle division of the Dakar Rally 2021 for the second consecutive year with the first one-two finish since 1987. Also, Repsol Honda Team rider Toni Bou won an unprecedented 30th consecutive world championship title by winning both the FIM*1 Trial World Championship and the FIM X-Trial World Championship.

In the 2022 season, Honda will compete with the factory teams*2 operated by Honda Racing Corporation (HRC) and strive to win the championship in the Dakar Rally 2022 currently in progress, in the premier classes of all three categories of the World Championship - road race, motocross and trial - as well as the FIM Superbike World Championship.

In addition to factory teams, Honda will support excellent satellite teams*3 which participate in World Championship races. Moreover, in Japan and many other countries and regions, teams formed by local Honda subsidiaries and dealers will participate and strive to win championship titles in road race, motocross and trial categories.

Honda will continue to foster young riders. In the 2022 season, Honda will continue to support Honda Team Asia, which will compete in the Moto2 and Moto3 classes of MotoGP. Moreover, as an opportunity for young riders to step up, Honda will continue supporting riders competing in the FIM JuniorGP Moto3 Junior World Championship. In addition, Honda will continue to utilize IDEMITSU Asia Talent Cup (IATC) as a program designed to foster young riders to discover and foster more riders who can compete in world-class races.

[Automobile activities]

In the FIA*4 Formula One World Championship (F1) where Honda competed as a power unit (PU) supplier, Red Bull Racing Honda driver Max Verstappen won the 2021 Drivers' World Championship, Honda's first Driver's World Championship in 30 years, since Ayrton Senna won the title in 1991.

In the 2022 season, based on a request from the Red Bull Group, HRC will support Red Bull Powertrains which will supply the PU that employs Honda's PU technologies to Scuderia AlphaTauri and Red Bull Racing.

Moreover, Honda will support participation of young Japanese derivers who are striving to compete in the pinnacle of world of automobile racing in the FIA Formula2 Championship (F2) and other races, following the footsteps of Yuki Tsunoda who will be competing in F1 with Scuderia AlphaTauri for the second consecutive year.

In Japan, Honda will strive to recapture the championship title in the GT500 class of the SUPER GT Series by launching the new model of NSX-GT. Moreover, Honda will make changes to the team structure and strive for consecutive wins in the Japanese SUPER FORMULA Championship.

Honda will supply Civic Type R-based racing machines, Civic TCR, for the FIA World Touring Car Cup (WTCR) which will be in its 5th year and the TCR series and endurance races, which have been popular all around the world. Moreover, Honda will continue to supply the NSX GT3 Evo to the GT championships and endurance races held in North America, Asia and Europe.

In North America, through Honda Performance Development (HPD), Honda will supply engines to 17 cars with 6 teams which will compete in the IndyCar Series. In the IMSA*5 WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, two teams will compete with ARX-05, the Acura brand machine supplied by HPD.

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https://global.honda/newsroom/news/2022/c220114eng.html

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