Is Honda Ready to Commit to Le Mans, WEC?

At last, the Honda Racing Corporation is said to be ready to make the call to take on Ferrari, Toyota, Aston Martin at Le Mans and in the WEC

Despite having a car that fully complies with Le Mans 24 Hour and World Endurance Championship Hypercar regulations in the LMDh Acura ARX-06 for several seasons now, Honda has been conspicuous by its absence from that epic race and world series.

At last, that may change. The Honda Racing Corporation is said to be ready to make the call to take on Ferrari, Toyota, Aston Martin, Peugeot and Alpine; regular IMSA rivals, Cadillac and BMW, newcomer Genesis, soon Ford and McLaren, and hopefully Porsche in the WEC and at Le Mans, too.

Speculation was amplified when HRC boss Koji Watanabe led a large Japanese Honda delegation to last week’s IMSA Daytona 24 Hour. Which adds to the intrigue that the ARX-06, a proven winner in the parallel US IMSA series, is right and ready to slot right into a WEC campaign.

HRC Clearly Wants to Race at Le Mans

A Honda WEC Hypercar effort was first mooted when the former HPD and the Honda Racing Corporation merged into the new global HRC late in 2023. “Uniting Honda motorsports will help sustain our racing success to achieve our goal of globally increasing the HRC brand,” HRC president Watanabe explained at the time.

“We need to look at the WEC,” HRC US president David Salters added. “Our chassis supplier ORECA and our race teams have done a stunning job with our amazing ARX-06 and of course, it’s eligible to go to WEC.” Salters more recently admitted, “The WEC is growing. Who doesn’t want to do Le Mans?”

Honda’s recent racing priority has been to design, develop and prepare the new Honda RA626H V6 Formula 1 engine to power Aston Martin’s 2026 AMR26 challenger. Never mind digging its MotoGP out of the rut it’d fallen into. But the F1 project is now running and the MotoGP turnaround implemented. Leaving the focus to finally fall on the WEC.

When Will Honda Make a Le Mans Call?

HRC is said to be poised to make the WEC call in the coming weeks. It is unlikely that Honda would fund the project alone but rather structure a deal with a team as it does with Meyer Shank Racing in IMSA. 2023 and ‘25 Le Mans LMP2 winners and ’24 IMSA class champions Inter Europol Competition appear to be a likely partner.

As it is in IMSA, HRC would run one car and the partner team the other in the WEC. A third, plausibly MSR car could then be added for Le Mans, like Cadillac and Porsche have traditionally done. The project would also run under the Honda brand, rather than Acura, which does not actively operate in Europe and the East.

Honda has only occasionally raced at Le Mans. In GT2 in 1994 and ‘96, and as a 1995 works GT1 entry, while a three-year HPD LMP1 effort (above) closed at Le Mans in 2013. HPD also ran a LMP2 campaign that brought two class wins and the 2012 title between 2010 and 2016. Remember, however, that several recent Honda WEC plans did not happen.

Images: Honda

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Michele Lupini

Once a handy engine and chassis tuner, and a combative racer and rally driver, Michele took up the pen to express his passion for cars, racing and motoring over 30 years ago. He published South Africa’s go-to enthusiast motor magazines Cars in Action and Bakkie — some say against all odds — for a quarter century. In that time, Michele had a hand in nurturing many of South Africa's motoring media leaders. Today Michele keeps himself busy with his a range of international motoring media duties alongside his own theauto.page. And a little racing on the side.