Honda Race Report, Winning ways continue in 2001

Sunday, April 28. 2002

The racing season is for 2001 is finished, and Honda again posted drivers championships and manufacturers titles. In doing so, Honda is training it’s engineers to learn, and adapt in the fast paced world of motorsports. These lessons will pay dividends as these engineers move to passenger car projects in the future.

Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) racing is the premiere open-wheel series in North America and has some of the most competitive racing anywhere. CART had 11 different drivers visit the top step of the victory podium in 20 races. It was in this ultra competitive environment, that Gil DeFerran (above) won his second consecutive drivers title in a Penske/Reynard with Honda power. Honda has been in CART for 8 years, and for the last 6 years in a row, the drivers title has gone to a Honda powered driver! Honda also won the engine manufacturer’s title for the fourth time, beating their rivals from Toyota and Ford in the process by a hefty margin.
Over in Formula 1, the going has been tougher. Honda provides motors to the British American Racing team (BAR) as well as Team Jordan, but success has eluded the two teams so far. There have been a couple encouraging podium finishes for Jacques Villenuve for the BAR team as well as numerous points paying positions. Villenuve’s teammate Oliver Panis has also finished in the points on several occasions. The 2002 pre-season testing for both Jordan and BAR has gone well, and there are high hopes for both teams.

In the Speedvision World Challenge, there are two classes, Touring Cars and GT. Peter Cunningham raced a supercharged Acura NSX in the GT class and narrowly missed the drivers title by only 8 points, while claiming 5 victories in 10 races. In the smaller Touring Car class, Pierre Kleinubing won his 3rd drivers title in his Acura Integra Type-R. This car has dominated the Touring Car class since it’s inception and this year’s title was the 5th in a row for the Type-R. This year the Real Time racing team faced a stiff challenge from the new BMW 6-cylinder 328s. World Challenge rules dictate that each time you win a race, you need to add 30 lbs of weight to the car, and by the end of the season, Kleinubing’s 1.8 liter, 4 cylinder VTEC engine was burdened by over a hundred extra pounds. The Acura contingent managed to win the drivers title but the manufacturers title went to BMW.

In the Speedvision World Challenge, there are two classes, Touring Cars and GT. Peter Cunningham raced a supercharged Acura NSX in the GT class and narrowly missed the drivers title by only 8 points to his former teammate Michael Galati (driving and Audi). In the smaller Touring Car class, Pierre Kleinubing won his 3rd drivers title in his Acura Integra Type-R. This car has dominated the Touring Car class since it’s inception and this year’s title was the 5th in a row for the Type-R. This year the Real Time racing team faced a stiff challenge from the new BMW 6-cylinder 328s. World Challenge rules dictate that each time you win a race, you need to add 30 lbs of weight to the car, and by the end of the season, Kleinubing’s 1.8 liter, 4 cylinder VTEC engine was burdened by over a hundred extra pounds. The Acura contingent managed to win the drivers title but the manufacturers title went to BMW.