Honda struggles with Formula One comeback

   Copyright c 1998 Nando Media
   Copyright c 1998 Agence France-Presse

TOKYO (Oct 23, 1998 - 12:08 EDT) - Honda is struggling to develop a chassis
for its return to Formula One, the company president admitted Friday.

"Hopefully next year. But most probably in the year 2000,"
Hiroyuki Yoshino said of the timing of Honda's return to the sport it quit
in 1992 after 10 years as an engine supplier.

"But since we do not have so much experience in the chassis area, we
are now studying how best we can develop and manufacture a racing chassis
for Formula One racing," he told a news conference.

Yoshino added that Honda is expected to complete testing on two F1
prototypes "in a month or so."

"We'd like to see what kind of performance these test cars will show.
So it will not be so long before we announce officially" the comeback
date.

The world-renowed car and motorcycle maker, celebrating its 50th
anniversary, announced in March it would come back to F1 racing as a full
constructor and team.

Honda last had its own F1 racing team from 1964 to 1968. The induction was
painful with only two wins out of 35 races and tragedy striking in the
final year.

In the 1968 French Grand Prix, Frenchman Jo Schlesser was burned to death
when his untried V8 Honda overturned and burst into flames, with magnesium
in the chassis feeding the flames.

The company, under founder Soichiro Honda, came back as an engine supplier
in 1984 and powered Williams and McLaren to constructors titles from 1986
to 1991, helping the late Brazilian Ayrton Senna among other star racers.

But, faced with slumping sales and the need to put resources into clean and
safe cars, Honda ended its 100 million dollar a year FI commitment in 1992.

The company has kept its links with F1 as its affiliate Mugen continued
supplying Honda-based engines to F1 teams, most recently Jordan.

"Without the challenge of racing competition, we never could have
developed the technologies which make Honda engines the most fuel efficient
and clean in the world," Yoshino said.

The first prototype was reportedly designed by Italian racing outfit
Dallara under respected British designer Harvey Poslethwaite.

Yoshino, who took over from Nobuhiko Kawamoto as Honda's chief executive
officer this year, was noncommital when asked about Honda's goals in F1
racing.

"We would first like to see our test machine's performance and then we
will know how much difficulty we face," he said. "We have not yet
established any concrete objective."

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