A Special Honda Livery For The Turkish Grand Prix
At this weekend’s Turkish Formula 1 Grand Prix, the two Red Bull Racing Honda cars will feature a special livery, while the two Scuderia AlphaTauri Hondas will sport a unique message on the rear wing.
The reason for doing this at the Turkish Grand Prix, is that the date, Sunday 10th October should have been the day of this year’s Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka, with Honda as its title sponsor, in its last year in Formula 1. Unfortunately, due to Covid-19 restrictions, the race has had to be cancelled.
The livery is a gesture of thanks and appreciation for the Japanese fans who were hoping to see Honda race one last time at its home track. The Red Bull Racing cars will be painted in the predominantly white livery inspired by the Honda RA 272 car with which the American driver Richie Ginther secured the company’s maiden Formula 1 win at the 1965 Mexican Grand Prix. The rear wing on the AlphaTauri cars will feature the one-word message ありがとう(arigato,) meaning “thank you.”
Everyone at Honda is extremely disappointed that the Japanese Grand Prix has had to be cancelled, while fully understanding and agreeing with the reasons behind this decision. We were especially keen to race at Suzuka Circuit, as it is our last year in the sport, at a time when both our teams are performing very well. We also appreciate that the Japanese fans were particularly looking forward to seeing Honda’s last appearance here and Yuki Tsunoda driving in his home race. We know that a special livery cannot replace what would have been a very exciting weekend, but we hope that Honda fans around the world, especially those in Japan, will accept this special livery as a small token of our appreciation of their continued support over so many years.
We had all been looking forward to giving Honda’s Japanese fans a chance to celebrate our extremely successful relationship in Formula One, on home soil at Suzuka. With the race falling victim to the pandemic, we just couldn’t let the weekend pass without paying tribute to Honda and its amazing home fans by bringing a little bit of its heritage to Istanbul. The livery chosen for our cars pays homage to Honda’s remarkable F1 journey and hopefully we can give fans another victory in those legendary colours this weekend.
It’s a big disappointment not being able to race at Suzuka, especially this year, which was supposed to be Honda’s last home GP. From our side, we were really looking forward to our Japanese trip even more than usual because it would have been great to see Yuki Tsunoda driving in front of his own crowd. It’s also a shame because Suzuka is one of the best race tracks in the world and always provides plenty of excitement and the fans really understand the sport, showing their appreciation in typical Japanese style. That will have to wait until next year, but in the meantime the simple “arigato” message on the rear wing of our two cars is just a small gesture to say THANK YOU to all our Japanese fans, while racing in Istanbul.