Honda heads into the summer on a hot streak

Honda Racing Corporation U.S. heads into summer with a highly unanticipated IndyCar Series streak it would like to maintain.

After three months of racing which included three street courses, three road courses, and the biggest oval race in the world at the Indianapolis 500, the California-based HRC US team has yet to lose a race. HRC heads to Madison, Illinois, site of Sunday’s Bommarito Automotive Group 500, with the goal of earning its eighth consecutive IndyCar Series victory of the year and ninth dating back to 2024’s season finale at Nashville Speedway.

Honda’s seven-race win streak in 2025 is anything but common in the turbocharged V6 era which launched in 2012; its years-long fight with Chevrolet has seen both brand go on strong runs, but what’s taking place this season is an unexpectedly new chapter late in the engine formula’s life.

At a point where the 2.2-liter powerplants are in their 14th championship run and seemingly have no major or minor gains waiting to be found, Honda has responded by finding something – or multiple things – that’s allowed it to build a sizable lead in the manufacturers’ standings.

It comes in response to Chevy’s similar performance last year where it held a noticeable edge over Honda on the way to winning the Manufacturers’ crown with 10 wins from 17 races. Even so, parity and trading wins has become the norm where one brand might win a few races on the trot before the other intervenes; the latest twist, with one engine supplier taking all of the wins to date, was never contemplated during the preseason.

The Detroit win by Andretti Global’s Kyle Kirkwood complemented the win one day prior by the Meyer Shank Racing team in IMSA’s WeatherTech SportsCar Championship GTP class with the factory Acura ARX-06 engineered by HRC, which certainly pleased the makers of both engines.

“Amazing weekend for Honda, HRC, and also Acura,” said HRC VP Kelvin Fu. “Between our IndyCar and IMSA programs we got two poles and two wins in Detroit, and our seventh victory in a row in IndyCar. This is an unprecedented start to the season for us. As always, thanks to the teams and all the folks back at HRC in Santa Clarita for all their continuous hard work, and the work they've done off season to get us to this point."

Looking to the past, Honda’s chasing itself with the most recent record it set during the previous naturally-aspirated V8 engine formula used by the Indy Racing League from 1997-2008. At its current tally of eight straight since Nashville, it would need to win the next six races to match its output from the 2004 IRL season when Honda-powered drivers took 14 straight trips to victory lane. Going up against Chevy and Toyota, its Japanese rival scored wins at the first and the last races of the 16-race season while Honda romped to 14-in-a-row between Toyota’s triumphs.

Two years prior, Chevy claimed the first 10 IRL victories of 2002 against Nissan’s Infiniti brand, but with the engines used today, the best streak prior to 2025 belonged to Chevy which won the last six races of 2014 and began 2015 with a win to combine for seven consecutive for the Bowtie and engine builder Ilmor Engineering.

Chevy and Ilmor showed the full measure of their might in 2016 when they won 14 of 16 races against Honda as the General Motors brand opened with six straight – seven when the last race of 2015 was factored in – and added seven straight during the season from Detroit through Pocono.

Since then, a five-win streak by Chevy in 2017, four by Honda in 2018, five from Honda with the last race of 2019 and first four of 2020, four from Chevy to start 2022, four from Honda in 2023, and three to end 2023 and one to open 2024 for four straight by Chevy are the closest to Honda’s streak of eight entering Sunday’s race at World Wide Technology Raceway.

WWTR’s 1.25-mile oval has been a happy hunting ground for Chevy since the IndyCar Series made its return in 2017. From the eight visits and nine total races – 2020 was a doubleheader – Chevy has a 66-percent strike rate, winning six to Honda’s three.

It’s also the perfect venue for Team Penske to capture its maiden win of the season, having won on debut in ’17 with Newgarden, in 2018 with Will Power, three-in-a-row with Newgarden from 2020-2022, and again last year with Josef Newgarden. The dominance of Penske and Chevy at WWTR suggests that Honda is in for its toughest test of the year.

The next stretch of races after WWTR also rank high on the potential win list for Chevrolet as Penske’s Will Power won at Road America in 2024, Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward won at Mid-Ohio – the first race for IndyCar’s hybrid unit – and the Penske duo of Scott McLaughlin and Power captured the Iowa Speedway doubleheader.

Across the next five races, Team Chevy returns to tracks where half of its victories were earned last year. As hard as it’s been to imagine how one brand would win eight straight since the end of 2024, it’s just as hard to picture the other brand coming away from the WWTRs and other stops on the upcoming calendar without bringing the streak to an end.

The Newgardens and Powers and O’Wards and the rest from Chevy will have 260 laps starting Sunday night in primetime – 8pm ET on FOX – to halt Honda’s amazing run or bow if the streak hits nine.