Honda launched its third assault on the Formula One World Championship in 2000 after seven years away from the world's top tracks. So far, though, success has eluded it -- despite this year's massive $210-million budget, which -- according to Euro Business magazine -- tops the lot, with Renault second on $170 million, then Toyota ($140m), Daimler Chrysler and Ford ($125m) and BMW ($115m).

At this weekend's San Marino GP at Imola the British-based BAR (British American Racing) and Jordan teams will be using Honda engines. Takeo Fukui, Honda's senior managing director in charge of motor sports, tells The Japan Times why his company spends so much on F-1 at a time when environmental concerns over cars would seem to take precedence over the pursuit of gas-guzzling performance.

JT: What are the aims of F-1 racing for Honda?

Fukui: We have three aims this time. Chiefly, we want to train ordinary engineers to become "Honda engineers." This is because manpower is the biggest asset for a company, so taking part in F-1 is not our final target, but a means of training people. Secondly, we aim to promote our corporate image -- though you have to win to do this best. The third reason is because of the technology gained through racing. The late Soichiro Honda, the founder of Honda Motor Co., regarded racing as an "ongoing experimental laboratory," and our past car and motorcycle racing activities have contributed to the development of production models.

What do you mean by "Honda engineers"?

The biggest issue for car-makers now is the environment. Manufacturers all over the world are developing fuel-cell cars in response, although these are not yet up to mass-production standard. We are aware that if we can't find some technical solutions to protect the environment, there will be no more car industry in the future. But gathering intelligent people will not be enough to crack the problem; they must also be aware of their mission -- and have a sense of crisis. Racing is one of the best ways of advancing technology, because everyone in it has sense of crisis. So we are hoping to train future "Honda engineers" through racing again.

Japanese engineers are world class, but some people say they lack originality. What do you think about this?

It is not a problem of originality, but vitality. Japanese industry in general now lacks vitality. Compare Japanese children to those of Afghanistan, China or Thailand. They are more vigorous and hungry than Japanese. What can we do to bring up people who have vitality? In the F-1 world, vigorous people gather from all over the world. They work from day to night to achieve their goal. Still, there is a chance you lose in front of many spectators. These bitter experiences will train engineers . . . who then bring back the know-how to our R&D.

To train top-class engineers, does it have to be in F-1?

Yes, because it is the hardest racing. We have been doing CART also, but CART is not so difficult as F-1. Also CART has many restrictions so it is hard to accumulate know-how and experience.

Honda dominated F-1 during the previous challenge [1983-92], but this time you have not yet won a race. Jacques Villeneuve finished third twice last year and that is the best result so far. What is the difference between the previous challenge and this one?

Last time we supplied engines to top teams such as Williams and McLaren. But now we are supplying them to BAR and Jordan. The difference is the capability of the team. Also we are jointly developing chassis with BAR this time. During our second challenge, engine engineers had been trained but not chassis engineers. So this time we want to train chassis engineers as well. This cannot be done with top teams as they develop chassis themselves. I think teaming up with BAR is the best solution. However, we sometimes feel impatient with the situation.

Why do you feel impatient?

Because BAR will not do what we ask unless they fully agree to our idea. I can hardly say that the project has progressed on time so far. It is almost a year behind our schedule. However, from this year, both the approach of Honda and our partnership have been changed a little, so everything will be better this year.

How do you evaluate the past two years' results?

I can't give any marks. If the pass mark is 80, all the other marks are zero. Soichiro Honda used to say "Second place is same as last place. It means nothing." Therefore we have only 80 marks or zero. That's our philosophy and last year was zero.

How about the engine this year?

Last year we tried to increase the power but could not achieve our target. This influenced the drivers and they became despondent. For this year, we are trying to build a new engine. It will be ready by mid-season and will be one of the most powerful units in the scene. We hope we can overtake the BMWs (Williams) on the straight with this engine.

Ferrari won the Championship last year. What do you think is its strong point?

Of course its driver (Michael Schumacher) is very fast, and also its approach is to mature its machine. It was using last year's machine for the first two races this year, although it brought out a new one for the last GP, in Brazil. It was maturing its machines without risking anything, so reliability was very high. But Honda must take a different approach, and we are trying new things. Once our lap time improves to within 0.5 second of the top teams, we will mature our engine.

You have Japanese driver, Takuma Sato, this year. He was the 2001 British F-3 champion and also worked as a test driver for the BAR team last year. What do you expect of him?

Takuma is a very clever driver and his machine set-up ability is very high. But it is not fair to expect too much of him this year as the F-1 machine produces higher g-force than F-3 machines, and also his rivals this year will be much more competitive. I expect him to gain some points, but next year he will fight for top three places. He also speaks good English. Eddie Jordan (head of the Jordan Honda team) said Takuma speaks better English than the Scottish driver David Coulthard!

Do you expect Sato to be a future World Champion?

I hope so. But to do so you have to have a suitable circumstance. We have to work harder to prepare better engines. This year, I expect Jacques Villeneuve (BAR), Olivier Panis (BAR) and Giancarlo Fisichella (Jordan) to join the leading group. We will not be satisfied with third place this year.

Do you think there is any chance F-1 racing will change direction toward environment-friendly racing in the near future?

I don't think the style will change drastically for another 10 years or so. After that we don't know what will happen. If we were to use fuel-cell cars in F-1, Honda would precede the others, so other companies will not let us do so.