DECEMBER 21, 2006

A green policy at Honda

As we suggested recently Honda looks like going green in colour in Formula 1 in 2007 with reports that the company has decided to push hard to market its environmental policies using F1. Honda F1's budget comes entirely from the research and development side of the company and this is the direction in which that side of the business is now going - with Honda not only building more and more environmentally-friendly cars but also diversifying into solar panels and other energy-saving ideas. The philosophy at Honda R&D has always been to allow the engineers to look at new ideas if they believe that the technology will benefit the company. This is why Honda build robots, jets, lawnmowers and so on, indeed Honda Racing F1 boss Nick Fry recently told the Motorsport Business Forum in Monte Carlo that he reckoned Honda had spent more money on its humanoid robot ASIMO programme than it has on F1.

Thus it makes a great deal of sense for R&D to trumpet its achievements rather than using F1 to sell its cars. The car sales will benefit from the association come what may.

Green is also a primary colour that has not been used in F1 since the demise of Jaguar Racing - a source of differentiation in a field where many of the colour schemes are rather similar.