Historic Honda milestone
Carmaker starts its 250th F1 race this weekend

When Canadian ace Jacques Villeneuve lines up to start the Hungarian Grand Prix on Sunday, his presence on the grid will mark another significant landmark in Honda's remarkable motorsport pedigree. At the tight and twisty Hungaroring circuit, the Japanese carmaker will be celebrating its 250th Grand Prix start. That's a F1 milestone that only three other manufacturers have achieved - Ford, Ferrari and Renault.

It all started for Honda in the summer of 1964. At the time, the company had only just started selling cars but was convinced that experience gained in the crucible of F1 would foster the kind of technical progress it needed to go on to even greater ambitions.

Initially Honda planned a joint project with the Lotus racing team. But when the English side of the partnership withdrew at the last minute, the Japanese company's engineers rose to the enormous challenge of designing and building a complete race car, as well as forming their own F1 team, from scratch.

Although the sport was less complicated in those days, it was still a daunting task.

The first Honda F1 car made its Grand Prix debut on Germany's challenging 22-kilometre Nurburgring track in early August with Ronnie Bucknum, an inexperienced young California club racer, at the wheel. He held a top 10 position before retiring with suspension damage - a legacy of the demanding circuit's many high-speed 'jumps.'

Honda contested two more races later in the year, failing to finish either.

But the precious experience gained in those three races bolstered the team structure and laid the foundation for improvements in 1965.

To boost chances for success, ex-BRM driver Richie Ginther was signed to partner Bucknum in a two-car attack. The diminutive Californian's arrival produced immediate results.

In his second race, Ginther scored Honda's first World Championship point at Belgium's legendary Spa circuit in June. Six races later, in the season finale in Mexico, Ginther grabbed the lead at the start and kept the opposition at bay to record the company's maiden F1 victory - on only its 11th F1 outing.

Since then, in 249 races prior to this weekend's Hungarian Grand Prix, Honda has notched up 71 wins, five consecutive World Drivers' Championships (1987 to '91) and six successive Constructors' titles (1986 to '91).

Three years later, in the 1990 Italian GP, Ayrton Senna took his 60th career pole and won handily in his McLaren-Honda, the 150th F1 start for Honda.

After another suspension of its racing activities following the conclusion of the 1992 season, Honda joined forces with British American Racing (BAR) and drivers Jacques Villeneuve and Ricardo Zonta in quest for more honours. Success has been hard to come by over the past four years, but Honda did record another historic moment when it started its 200th Grand Prix event - the Italian GP at Monza in 2000.

Perhaps its milestone 250th start this weekend will produce the successful result Honda's been waiting for in its latest effort to grab F1's brass ring.