Phoenix 24
Leadership changes as Honda strengthens its global racing structure.
Saitama, Japan
Honda Racing Corporation has announced a major leadership change that will see Koji Watanabe step down as President and CEO at the beginning of 2027. Keiichi Yasuda, currently Executive Vice President and Representative Director of HRC, will succeed him on January 1 as Honda reorganizes its motorsport leadership around a new competitive cycle. The company presents the move as part of an executive transition designed to strengthen management and prepare the organization for its next stage of international competition. The timing is particularly significant because Honda is now fully immersed in its renewed Formula 1 partnership with Aston Martin.
Watanabe has played a central role in reshaping Honda’s global motorsport structure during recent years. His tenure included the integration of automobile racing activities into HRC and the transformation of the organization into a broader international motorsport platform. Under his leadership, Honda prepared its return to Formula 1 as a works power unit supplier and expanded its racing structure beyond Japan. That period also strengthened HRC’s presence in the United States and Europe, creating a more interconnected global operation.
The transition arrives while Honda is competing in Formula 1 as Aston Martin’s factory power unit partner under the championship’s new technical regulations. Honda has also been adjusting the leadership of its Formula 1 power unit development program as part of a broader generational change inside its engineering structure. Taken together, these moves suggest that the company is reorganizing both its technical and executive architecture rather than making an isolated personnel change. The objective is to create a more durable competitive platform for the coming Formula 1 cycle.
Yasuda brings a managerial profile shaped by leadership, human resources and international operations. His career has included responsibilities in organizational development and overseas management before entering HRC’s senior executive structure. That background suggests Honda may place greater emphasis on talent development, institutional coordination and long term organizational resilience alongside engineering performance. In modern Formula 1, those elements increasingly determine whether technological potential can be converted into consistent results.
For Aston Martin and Honda, the leadership change therefore extends beyond the identity of one executive. Watanabe helped construct the organizational framework behind Honda’s renewed Formula 1 commitment, while Yasuda will inherit responsibility for translating that structure into sustained performance. The transition marks the beginning of a new leadership cycle at HRC precisely as expectations around its Formula 1 project continue to rise.
Beyond the news, the pattern. / Más allá de la noticia, el patrón.