Honda F1 RA107

Honda F1 RA107 review:

The Honda Racing F1 Team announced a major new initiative for the 2007 Formula 1 season. To help raise awareness of the environmental issues facing the planet, the RA107 F1 car will simply feature a huge image of earth, in place of the advertising and sponsor logos which have featured and dominated all other F1 cars for decades.

The car�s new look is a powerful call to action for fans, sponsors, customers and members of the public to join Honda�s commitment to help address the environmental issues facing the world.

Via the website myearthdream.com, anyone who wishes, will have the opportunity to have their name on the car, make a pledge to make a lifestyle change to improve the environment and make a donation to an environmental charity. Under the concept of �our car is your car�, each name will form a tiny individual pixel which will help build the image of planet earth on the car. Each name will be visible on the website when you make the pledge or under a microscope on the car.

The Honda Racing F1 Team will work closely with global environmental charities to develop Honda�s existing environmental ethos within the world�s most high profile motor-sport.

Yasuhiro Wada, Chairman

�Honda has a huge desire to challenge for this year�s 2007 F1 World Championship. We hope this year will be a successful and exciting season. Equally we intend to give something back in the form of our new environmental F1 concept, which we believe will bring something fresh and new to motor sport.

�Honda constantly strives to be innovative in both its technology and its thinking and to sincerely respond to the demands of customers and society. Honda has always made great efforts to contribute to the preservation of the environment in its corporate activity. We hope this new initiative for Honda in F1 will help to further stimulate awareness and interest across the world for these important environmental issues.�

Nick Fry, Chief Executive Officer

�Climate change is probably the single biggest issue facing our planet and F1 is not immune from it. On the contrary we believe that F1 with its huge global profile and cutting edge technology can play an important role in not only highlighting the issues but also playing our part in developing solutions. In addition, the FIA recognises the opportunity for F1 to play an important role in developing technologies for the benefit of society long term. For example, by 2009, devices for energy recovery will be in place on the cars.

�So we at Honda F1 are proud to dedicate our car to the environmental challenge. We believe that solutions can stem directly from engineers working on our F1 program and are working harder than ever to achieve our dreams and win the World Championship while embracing and underscoring Honda�s environmental ethos.

�First and foremost, we are a race team and F1 is very much a team sport. We achieve our racing objectives only by working together and parallels can be drawn with the way that we must all join together to address the environmental challenge. We hope that in raising awareness and highlighting the issues we will encourage members of the public to come together and help take on the challenge of climate change�.

Shuhei Nakamoto, Senior Technical Director

�The RA107 is the result of ten months of design, development and manufacture which began almost as soon as the RA106 made its race debut. It combines the efforts of our staff in Brackley and Bracknell with some longer-term projects which have been underway for some time at Honda R&D in Tochigi.

�The main design challenge has been achieving improved aerodynamic efficiency whilst accommodating tough new safety regulations specific to the car�s crash structures. I am pleased that we have been able to achieve this objective at the same time as reducing the overall weight of the car. The RA107 also boasts some innovative packaging solutions, particularly around the exhaust and radiators, which allow for much tighter bodywork within what is generally a nicely integrated aerodynamic design package.

�In addition, we are pleased with the way we are developing our understanding of the Bridgestone Potenza tires and our progress in this area has been due to a combination of the simulation work conducted at our Brackley headquarters and an extremely productive pre-Christmas testing program which saw our team achieve more mileage than our competitors.

�Engine development has been no less of a challenge because of the homologation regulation. I am pleased with what we have achieved in terms of usable torque and fuel efficiency whilst limiting the engine to 19,000 rpm.

�We now look forward to the next challenge of optimizing the RA107 for the first race in Melbourne on 18 March, with a comprehensive pre-season development program.�
End of Honda F1 RA107 review.