Honda's internal racing efforts in the 1970s were split between two structures. The Racing Service Center, created in 1973, developed and supplied production-based race bikes for domestic competition and began participating in the European endurance championship from 1976, an event that later became the FIM Endurance World Championship in 1980. Separately, the NR block within Honda R&D developed pure racing machines, leading to Honda's return to Grand Prix motorcycle racing with the NR500 in 1979. Shoichiro Irimajiri, general manager of the NR block, was appointed as HRC's first president when the two organisations merged in 1982. Establishing HRC as a separate specialist company was intended to give racing activities greater continuity independent of Honda's broader commercial performance.
HRC has been competing in Grand Prix motorcycle racing since its inception and has won more than 20 constructors' titles in the premier class, which became MotoGP from 2002. HRC currently competes as Honda HRC Castrol in the premier MotoGP class. The company supplied designated engines to the Moto2 class until 2018 and supports customer teams in the Moto3 class.
In the Superbike World Championship, HRC ran works machinery under the Castrol Honda banner until the end of 2002. Factory support returned in 2019 through a joint arrangement with the Moriwaki Althea Honda Team.
HRC has a significant history in off-road competition. In the Dakar Rally, Cyril Neveu won the event in 1982 riding a modified XR500R supplied by HRC at Honda France's request. The NXR750 prototype, featuring a liquid-cooled V-twin, won the Dakar four consecutive times from 1986 to 1989. After a long period of privateer support only, HRC returned as a factory team in 2013 and won the event outright in 2020 and 2021. In the World Rally-Raid Championship, which began in 2022, HRC won the manufacturers' title in 2022, 2023, and 2024.
HRC also won the Motocross World Championship 500cc class in 1979, and the manufacturer has since accumulated 39 riders' titles in motocross world competition. The Suzuka 8 Hours Endurance Road Race has been another area of strength; eight of Honda's ten consecutive victories from 1997 to 2006 were achieved by HRC, and the company won the event again in 2022 after resuming works participation in 2018.
In an unusual extension of its racing remit, HRC developed the RN-01 dedicated downhill mountain bike between 2003 and 2007, competing in the JCF Mountain Bike Japan Series and UCI Mountain Bike World Cup, with Greg Minnaar winning the UCI World Cup downhill category in 2005.
On 1 April 2022, Honda's automobile racing activities were transferred to HRC and Honda R&D's motorsport base HRD Sakura (located in Sakura, Tochigi) was renamed HRC Sakura to serve as the automobile division. The motorcycle division remains based in Asaka, Saitama.
In Formula One, HRC's involvement began in 2022 when it took over supply of the power units previously developed by Honda Motor Company itself for Red Bull Racing and AlphaTauri, channelled through Red Bull Powertrains. The units were badged as RBPT in 2022 and from 2023 as Honda RBPT. The 2023 Honda RBPT001 unit claimed 21 victories in 22 races. In May 2023, Honda announced a full-scale return to Formula One from 2026 as a works power unit supplier for the Aston Martin F1 team. HRC UK was established in the United Kingdom in February 2024 to serve as the European operational base for the 2026 programme. The technical partnership with Red Bull Powertrains is set to conclude at the end of the 2025 season.
In Super Formula — Japan's premier single-seater series — HRC took over the engine programme from HRD Sakura in 2022, developing and supplying 2.0-litre turbocharged inline-4 engines to Nippon Race Engine regulations. In HRC's first season, Tomoki Nojiri and Team Mugen claimed both the drivers' and teams' championships with the HR-417E engine. HRC also assumed responsibility for Honda's Super GT GT500 programme in 2022, campaigning the NSX-GT through 2023 before introducing the Civic Type R-GT for 2024 — the first four-door GT500 car and the first based on a front-wheel-drive road model.
GT3 customer racing was absorbed into HRC's remit from 2022 as well, with the NSX GT3 Evo22 offered to customer teams until factory support ended after 2024. In North America, Honda Performance Development was renamed Honda Racing Corporation USA (HRC US) in December 2023, integrating North American IndyCar and IMSA LMDh (Acura ARX-06) operations under the global HRC structure.
In 2023 HRC launched Honda Racing eMS, an esports competition conducted within Gran Turismo 7, aimed at identifying and developing racing talent. The corporation has also moved to commercialise its historical assets; in August 2024 a 1990 McLaren-Honda V10 engine was auctioned, marking the launch of a dedicated memorabilia and heritage business unit. The Honda Heritage Works programme, planned to begin in April 2026, will facilitate global distribution of reproduction parts and provide vehicle restoration services in Japan for classic Honda and Acura sport models.
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