Honda’s 200th premier-class victory is a unique achievement in motorcycle racing history. No other manufacturer has got close to this landmark in more than half a century of Grand Prix racing. But then, Honda’s racing history does span the majority of the World Championship’s 58 seasons. Honda first went GP racing in 1959, 11 years after the series was first established, and contested its first premier-class campaign in 1966, when the category was limited to 500cc machines. Honda is the only factory to have enjoyed success in GP racing’s three eras, the first 500 four-stroke era, the 500 two-stroke era and the new 990cc MotoGP four-stroke era. Through five decades Honda has won GPs with some of bike racing’s most hallowed names: Jim Redman, Mike Hailwood, Freddie Spencer, Wayne Gardner, Eddie Lawson, Mick Doohan, Valentino Rossi and now Honda’s new generation of Nicky Hayden, Marco Melandri, Dani Pedrosa and company. Beyond the individual Grand Prix triumphs, Honda has also won 29 premier-class World Championship (16 constructors titles and 13 riders titles). Despite Honda’s reputation for technical innovation and daring, its original 500 GP weapon was a relatively straightforward machine, an air-cooled inline four, but the RC181 was a veritable rocket, good for 170mph on the super-fast but lethal street circuits that dominated 1960s GP racing. Not surprisingly, the RC181 won its very first race, rock-hard Rhodesian Redman easily outpacing Giacomo Agostini’s MV Agusta at Hockenheim. The bike won a total of ten GPs during two seasons and scored Honda’s first premier-class world title, the 1966 constructors, though it narrowly failed to win the riders crown on both occasions. Honda enjoyed its next period of success with its first two-stroke racer, after its audacious 22,000rpm oval-piston NR500 four-stroke had been unable to beat the two-strokes that dominated GP racing from the mid-1970s. The new NS500 V3 was deftly maneuverable and highly rideable, helping Spencer win the factory’s first premier-class riders title in 1983. The NS won a total of 14 GPs over four seasons. Honda’s next two-stroke became the most successful premier-class machine in history. The NSR500 V4, which contested 19 World Championship seasons, won ten riders’ titles, ten constructors’ crowns and 132 GP victories, including Honda’s 50th premier-class success (Gardner at the 1989 Australian GP) and its 100th victory (Carlos Checa at the 1996 Catalan GP). The NSR was the apogee of two-stroke performance, the final 2002 model producing close to 200 horsepower with superbly linear power delivery. The NSR was only retired at the birth of GP racing’s new era. In 2002 the 500 GP class became MotoGP, with the new breed of 990 four-strokes immediately dominant. Honda, always a four-stroke company at heart, produced a wondrous new machine, the RC211V, powered by an ultra-compact V5 engine and utilizing much 21st century electronics technology. The RCV swept all before it, winning the 2002 and 2003 riders titles, as well as the 2002, 2003 and 2004 constructors titles. The bike has so far won 44 GPs, taking Honda to that landmark of 200 victories.
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