Honda entered Grand Prix racing in 1964 just four years after producing its first road car — an indication of the company's extraordinary rate of development. Honda began designing the RA271 chassis in 1962 and staffed the team almost entirely with Japanese engineers, a radical departure in a paddock dominated by British and Italian constructors. The only exceptions were the drivers: Americans Ronnie Bucknum and Richie Ginther. Like Ferrari and BRM, Honda built both their own engine and chassis simultaneously, a technically demanding ambition that few teams had ever attempted.
The RA271, powered by a 1.5-litre V12, made its World Championship debut at the 1964 German Grand Prix. The car showed potential but suffered reliability problems throughout the season and failed to score points.
In only their second year of competition, Honda reached the top step of the podium. Richie Ginther won the 1965 Mexican Grand Prix in the RA272 — the final race of the 1.5-litre Formula One era — giving Honda, Ginther, and the Goodyear tyre company all their first Formula One victories simultaneously. The win was emphatic enough to confirm that Honda's technical approach was sound, even if the transition to the new 3.0-litre regulations for 1966 would present fresh challenges.
For the new 3.0-litre rules introduced in 1966, Honda produced the RA273. Its engine — a 360 horsepower V12 — was well-designed, but the car was handicapped by a heavy and unwieldy chassis built in-house in Japan. The combination made the RA273 difficult to drive competitively, and results were modest.
Honda addressed the chassis problem for 1967 by partly outsourcing the design to Lola in the United Kingdom. The resulting RA300 — nicknamed the "Hondola" by the press — was significantly lighter and better-handling. In its very first Formula One race, at the 1967 Italian Grand Prix at Monza, John Surtees drove the RA300 to victory in a close and dramatic finish. Surtees was Honda's sole driver that season and finished fourth in the Drivers' Championship, while Honda finished fourth in the Constructors' standings — a respectable result for a team still finding its feet in the new formula.
The 1968 season brought both promise and tragedy. The Honda RA301 showed competitive pace, finishing on the podium twice and securing a pole position, suggesting further wins were possible. However, Honda had also developed a radical new car for 1968, the RA302, featuring an air-cooled V8 engine in place of the conventional water-cooled V12. This experimental machine was deemed insufficiently developed for racing by Honda's more cautious engineers, but was entered at the French Grand Prix at Rouen-Les-Essarts at the insistence of the French importer. Driven by Jo Schlesser, the RA302 caught fire after a crash in the opening laps, and Schlesser died in the accident.
The RA302 incident, combined with Honda's desire to concentrate resources on selling road cars in the United States market — where government emissions and safety regulations were demanding increasing engineering attention — prompted the company to announce its withdrawal from Formula One at the end of the 1968 season.
Honda's 1960s programme produced three victories: Ginther at Mexico 1965, Surtees at Italy 1967, and Surtees again at South Africa 1967 under the Cooper-Maserati entry before joining Honda. The programme's deeper significance lies in what it proved. Honda demonstrated that a manufacturer from outside Europe's established motorsport ecosystem could design, build, and race a competitive Formula One package — engines, chassis, and logistics — with a predominantly Japanese workforce. This was a proposition that many in the paddock had doubted.
The 1960s effort also seeded the engineering knowledge and motorsport culture that Honda would deploy on a much larger scale when it returned to Formula One in 1983 as an engine supplier. That second era would yield six consecutive Constructors' Championships, five consecutive Drivers' Championships, and partnerships with Williams and McLaren that defined the late 1980s and early 1990s. The 1960s programme was, in retrospect, the foundation on which all of Honda's subsequent Formula One success was built.
Honda's three Grand Prix wins as a constructor remain the most by any Japanese or Asian team in Formula One history.