The one hundredth Indianapolis 500 was an enormous deal. It marked the primary win for driver Felix Roseqvist, a brand new document set for many laps across the observe by driver Helio Castroneves, and resulted within the closest-ever end within the race’s historical past. However apart from Felix strolling away with the trophy, there was one other winner: Honda.
Honda has supplied engines and expertise to IndyCar for many years, being one of many solely two producers to take action. And regardless of the racing wing of Honda seemingly having nothing to do with the Passports and Civics we see on the street, a number of what makes these IndyCars carry out so properly does really trickle down into Honda’s passenger vehicles.
Earlier than the race, we sat down with Honda Racing Company (HRC) president David Salters and vp Kelvin Fu to debate the method.
HRC President David Salters (left), HRC VP Kelvin Fu (proper)
Photograph by: Honda
The very first thing to find out about how totally different applied sciences are distributed throughout Honda’s manufacturers is the Honda Technical Discussion board. Every year, the totally different branches of Honda—sure, even HondaJet—all meet as much as talk about what they’ve been as much as, and the potential functions for various items of tech. David Salters explains:
‘So final 12 months, it was hybrid, and other people had been choosing up on issues that we have discovered right here when it comes to vitality administration, when it comes to find out how to use the hybrid, et cetera.’
The concentrate on hybridization for the Honda manufacturers is necessary. Regardless of the $9 billion misstep within the model’s EV funding, Honda has been an early and quick adopter of hybrid applied sciences, one thing that reveals up within the engines they provide to IndyCar.
For instance, Honda’s IndyCars use supercapacitors, a expertise that, whereas frequent on trendy race vehicles, has but to hit the patron aspect the identical manner. Based on HRC US Vice President Kelvin Fu, speaking about these applied sciences to totally different wings of Honda, in addition to customers, is an effective way to gauge curiosity from all events.
‘It makes folks suppose. I believe persons are all the time going, ‘Oh, supercompacitors. That was attention-grabbing.’ They wish to study extra about it, whether or not it reveals up subsequent 12 months, 2 years, 5 years.’
Felix Rosenqvist Profitable The 2026 Indy 500
Photograph by: Honda
The largest similarity between Honda’s racing vehicles and what we see on the street is the software program. “Bear in mind, a racing automotive is a software-defined automobile,” says Salters. He talks about how Honda can go in and alter and create its personal code to change sure elements of the hybrid system, one thing that’s key in high-performance functions just like the Indianapolis 500.
‘However how we cope with vitality, simulation, all that form of stuff. It is all been run on a software-defined automobile. There have been software-defined automobiles for 30 years. So, that is the place a few of the studying comes from.’
Lastly, Honda Racing makes use of instruments like simulators and wind tunnels to check out totally different applied sciences, together with the aforementioned hybrid system, for the perfect outcomes. Fu says there is no such thing as a direct path to a bit of code within the engine of an IndyCar ending up in a Civic, however Honda’s totally different segments working collectively and sharing expertise permits quicker adaptability.
‘I am certain there have been applied sciences and data has handed forwards and backwards. Hopefully, it is simply inviting itself on the manufacturing aspect.’
Salters says the bottom line is having data “handed forwards and backwards” from totally different engineers, in addition to from these within the massive workplace in Japan. And whereas we have no idea how lengthy it takes for sure items of expertise to go from the racing to manufacturing aspect, possibly we’ll see the identical sort of high-performance hybrid system within the subsequent Sort R.
Most likely not, however we are able to solely hope.
