And Colossally That's History: Honda's rollercoaster F1 journey

The Race F1 Podcast

The Race Media Ltd

Sports

4.5 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 14 November 2025

⏱️ 77 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The latest episode of And Colossally That’s History tells the rollercoaster story of Honda’s involvement in Formula 1.

Join Matt Bishop and Richard Williams as they explain how founder Soichuro Honda’s deep love of motor racing led him to enter a car in F1 in 1964, barely a year after the first Honda road car had left the factory.

The Japanese team’s early forays into Grand Prix racing - met with scepticism by some - are discussed, as well as how Honda became race winners before leaving F1 shortly afterwards - something that’s been a feature of Honda’s involvement in the top level of racing.

There’s also discussion about Honda’s second era, when it powered Williams to championships before shifting allegiances to McLaren where even greater domination followed, as well as one of F1’s most enduring alliances with a man beloved by Honda: Ayrton Senna.

Matt and Richard also reflect on Honda’s third F1 era, when Honda became a fully fledged manufacturer again, before withdrawing again and watching Brawn take its cars to championship glory.

And finally, the present Honda era, which began with a disastrous rekindling with McLaren but morphed into more title winning success, this time with Red Bull, is discussed.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The Athletic
0:02.7	Hello, motor-loving friends, and welcome to another episode of
0:13.7	and colossally, That's History, with me, Richard Williams.
0:17.4	And me, Matt Bishop.
0:18.7	And for those keeping track, we're on to episode six of
0:21.8	season four now and the engines humming nicely as we move into the second half of our latest
0:28.3	metaphorical race through motor racing history. And I see what you've done there, Richard,
0:33.4	with your little references to motors and engines, and it's rather apt,
0:38.6	because the manufacturer at the centre of our discussion in this episode
0:42.8	knows better than most how to get an internal combustion engine humming nicely,
0:49.3	because that manufacturer makes more internal combustion engines
0:53.9	than any other on planet Earth, 14 million
0:57.6	of them every year in fact. Car engines, bike engines, boat engines, aircraft engines, lawnmower engines,
1:06.4	chainsaw engines, power tool engines, outboard motor engines, generator engines, etc.
1:14.3	You must be pleased when I finally got to the etc. You were glazing over.
1:18.0	And already, I think that's an anorek fact, isn't it?
1:20.3	Not glazing over at all. Very definitely an anorak fact.
1:24.2	With a high-vis jacket on.
1:25.6	Indeed. So who is this illustrious manufacturer?
1:30.5	Well, it's Honda.
1:32.1	And yes, today we're going to be speaking about Honda.
1:35.8	And more specifically, Honda's roller coaster Formula One story so far.
	...

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