Tag: race

Honda drivers claim both FIA Formula One and NTT INDYCAR SERIES championships for the first time in the same year…reports Asian Lite News

Honda is celebrating its most successful season of racing worldwide, highlighted by its drivers claiming both the FIA Formula One and NTT INDYCAR SERIES championships.  This marks the first time Honda-powered drivers have won these titles in the same season – and the first time for any racing engine firm in nearly 40 years.

The titles won by Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen in Formula One and Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou in INDYCAR competition are just two of the championships and major race victories recorded by Honda this year, including:

• Honda’s 10th INDYCAR Manufacturers’ Championship, the fourth consecutive title for the company
• Honda’s 14th Indianapolis 500 win, and a record-tying fourth Indy victory, for Meyer Shank Racing’s Helio Castroneves; with Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon claiming pole
• Manufacturer, Driver and Team IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup championship for Acura, Wayne Taylor Racing and drivers Filipe Albuquerque, Ricky Taylor and Alexander Rossi
• Eleven wins in Formula One competition, including the prestigious Grand Prix of Monaco for eventual champion Verstappen
• Victory for the Honda Ridgeline Race Truck in November’s Baja 1000, with drivers Jeff Proctor, Rossi, Richard Glaszczak and Steve Hengeveld
• Acura’s first overall Rolex 24 at Daytona victory with Wayne Taylor Racing
• Ten INDYCAR wins in 2021, for a total of 262 victories in CART, IRL and INDYCAR competition   

“It’s been an incredible season from start to finish,” said David Salters, president and technical director of Honda Performance Development, the North American motorsports arm for Honda Racing and Acura Motorsports. “We began the season with an historic win for Acura at the Rolex 24 at Daytona; and we finished it with the FIA Formula One Drivers World Championship; plus the Indianapolis 500, INDYCAR titles and Baja 1000. It’s a credit to our awesome teams, brilliant drivers, magnificent HPD associates and the inspiring women and men involved in Honda’s worldwide racing programs. Thank you Honda, for supporting our challenging spirit and providing joy to millions of race fans worldwide.”

Racing is ingrained in the corporate culture of Honda, in a way unlike any other automotive manufacturer.  A former racer himself, founder Soichiro Honda believed in competition at the highest levels as a means of improving his company, its people and products.

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More than 55 years later, Honda continues to view racing as an ideal training ground for engineers and designers.  The pressures of racing challenge them, forcing them to find new solutions to problems as they arise.  They also demand that you be ready on time – for the new season, for qualifying, for the race.  If you can’t respond quickly and correctly, you’ll be left behind. 

100 years since Bentley’s first-ever race win…reports Asian Lite News

100 years since the first race win for a Bentley, the winning car itself – known as EXP2 – returned to the famous Brooklands Racetrack in Surrey to lead a cavalcade of 3-Litre Bentleys to celebrate the centenary of its victory.

EXP2 is the oldest Bentley in the world, and only the second car ever built by W.O. Bentley’s fledgling company in 1921. EXP2 led a field of 24 3-Litres from across the country, which formed up on the remaining section of the banked Brooklands circuit where Bentley took its first ever win back in 1921. The car took victory in the Whitsun Junior Sprint Handicap at the hands of ‘works’ driver Frank Clement, starting a series of race wins for the 3-Litre model that culminated in two victories at the 24 Hours of Le Mans – Bentley’s first in 1924, driven by Clement and John Duff, and again in 1927. Between those successes, in 1925 Duff also used a 3-Litre to secure a total of 21 world records over the course of 24 hours.

These early victories for the 3-Litre engrained motorsport in the foundations of Bentley, and paved for the way for more than 1,600 3-Litre models to be produced and sold.

The collection of 3-Litres and the event itself was organised by the Bentley Drivers’ Club, whose chairman Richard Parkinson comments: “Motorsport success is a huge part of Bentley’s  heritage, as it is for the Bentley Drivers Club. We were therefore determined to mark the centenary of the first Bentley racing win at Brooklands this year with the actual car, EXP2 itself, kindly provided by Bentley Motors.”

EXP2 – The Oldest Bentley in the World

After founding his company in 1919, it took two years for W.O. Bentley to develop the engine and chassis of his first production model – the 3-Litre, a car that he went on to produce 1,622 examples of between 1921 and 1929. Crucial to that development programme were the Experimentals – or EXPs for short. EXP1 came first, and was the very first car to wear the Bentley badge. EXP2 was next, and while EXP1 was lost to history (and may well have been cannibalised to create the other EXPs), EXP2 has survived for a century as the oldest Bentley in existence.

EXP2 was originally constructed with a plain two-seat body, to serve its function as a development testbed for the engine – incredibly advanced for its time – and chassis. It was later rebodied with dark red bodywork and an aluminium bonnet, crafted by coachbuilders JH Easter of Chagford Street.

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It’s first race was only nine days before its first win. At the hands of Frank Clement, it competed at Brooklands but failed to finish. Whatever gremlins had disturbed that first race were banished by the following weekend, and when the car took to the track again it came home victorious for the first time.

EXP2 carried on with its split career of development testing and racing for two years, before being sold in September 1923. The car was completely rebuilt to its original specification around 25 years ago, and is now one of the most important members of the Bentley Heritage Collection.