Latest news with #KojiWatanabe
Yahoo
02-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
🌏 Watch Australia vs Japan LIVE and for FREE on Yahoo Sports 📺
🌏 Watch Australia vs Japan LIVE and for FREE on Yahoo Sports 📺 It's international soccer time, and OneFootball will be broadcasting two matches this week from the Asian Football Confederation LIVE and FREE-TO-ACCESS on Yahoo Sports. The road to the 2026 World Cup continues with… Australia vs Japan Thursday 5 June 2025 Kick-off: 04:10 Pacific/07:10 Eastern Advertisement To watch, simply click PLAY on the video above, and enjoy the match LIVE and for FREE. Streams begin 10 minutes before kick-off. Users in the United States and Canada can also watch every AFC World Cup qualification match LIVE on OneFootball. Individual match streams are priced $4.99 for users in the United States and Canada, with Season Passes also priced at $14.99. To watch, simply head over to the OneFootball app or website, navigate to the TV tab on the Home screen, and search for AFC Live. All matches are also live-streamed on the OneFootball TV app, available on connected TVs from Apple TV, Google TV, Samsung, LG, and Fire TV. Highlights will also be available after the match in the OneFootball app. 📸 Koji Watanabe - 2024 Getty Images
Asahi Shimbun
28-04-2025
- Automotive
- Asahi Shimbun
Honda to sell engine parts from F1 racing car driven by Ayrton Senna
Honda Racing Corp. President Koji Watanabe explains the automaker's project to sell parts from past Formula One race cars during a news conference in Tokyo on April 2. (Akihiro Nishiyama) Honda Motor Co. said it will auction engine parts of a Formula One car driven by the legendary Ayrton Senna for the 1990 season. The auction will be held in the United States in August. Other small parts will be sold online at a starting price of several thousand yen, the company said. Honda's golden era in F1 occurred in the 1980s and 1990s. McLaren Honda driver Senna won his first World Championship in 1988, elevating the company's name on the F1 circuit. He later won two more World Championships, including one in 1990. Senna, a Brazilian considered one of the greatest F1 drivers in history, was killed in a crash in a race in 1994. Although Honda preserves its racing cars and parts from the past, it cannot display many of the items. By selling the parts, the automaker aims to increase its brand value and develop new businesses for fans. The company said it is also considering selling engines and entire cars. 'We think those who find value in the stories behind engines, bodies or parts will buy them,' Koji Watanabe, president of Honda Racing, said at a news conference in Tokyo on April 2.
Japan Times
05-04-2025
- Automotive
- Japan Times
Honda looks toward its F1 future as Red Bull partnership nears end
It's a bittersweet weekend for one of Japan's auto giants: After four Formula One drivers' championships and two constructors' championships, the Honda-Red Bull partnership is nearing an end. With Sunday marking the final Japanese Grand Prix of the tie-up, Honda Racing President Koji Watanabe reflected on one of the most successful constructor-engine supplier partnerships in the history of the sport. 'Looking back now, we're very proud of the results that we have achieved with this partnership,' Watanabe told The Japan Times in an interview on Saturday. 'Especially with Yuki (Tsunoda) being here at a home race, racing for Red Bull ... it's a very important and very significant weekend.' But success under this generation of 1.6 liter turbocharged hybrid F1 engines didn't come easily. The first three years of Honda's fourth era in F1 were marked by problems with reliability and raw power, with its sole customer, McLaren, dropping the Japanese company toward the end of the 2017 season. 'Our Honda staff ... struggled in a way because it was something new that they had to put all their effort into for the first three years,' Watanabe said. That decision briefly left Honda without a customer for its beleaguered engines for 2018, but it eventually secured a deal with Toro Rosso, Red Bull's junior team, now known as Racing Bulls. After a successful 2018, Honda added Red Bull to its client list in 2019. There's always been a bit of fickleness to Honda's commitment to F1 and in October 2020 it announced that it would leave the series for the fourth time after the 2021 season. That year, Max Verstappen drove his Red Bull to the drivers' title, the first drivers' championship for a Honda-powered car since Ayrton Senna in 1991. Despite officially exiting, Honda didn't stop supplying engines to Red Bull and effectively stayed in the sport under the badge Honda-Red Bull Power Train. In 2023, that partnership won 21 of the 22 races, the most successful season in the sport's history. Now comes a new challenge for 2026 and a new generation of F1 engines as the sport moves further toward electrification with a 50/50 split between internal combustion and electric power. Honda Racing President Koji Watanabe and Red Bull driver Yuki Tsunoda at Suzuka Circuit. Watanabe says that Honda will have a say on the driver lineup when the Japanese carmaker begins a partnership with Aston Martin starting next season. | Honda Racing Honda will supply Aston Martin with new engines as the British team, which finished fifth in 2024, aims to move from the midfield to the front of the grid. Watanabe praised the smooth talks between Aston Martin and Honda as the two companies work toward next season, where sweeping regulation changes could drastically shake up the pecking order. Watanabe said that, while the new engine regulations pose a significant challenge, Honda's development is proceeding according to plan. And compared to when the manufacturer reentered the sport in 2015, Honda is in a much better position now. 'We had discontinued the project with Formula One so we were not prepared in 2015,' Watanabe said. 'We started from zero. Now we're not starting from zero, so it is a smoother development.' Aston Martin also has one familiar face of note for Honda personnel: Ace engineer Adrian Newey, who has designed 12 constructors' championship-winning cars, formally joined the team in March after departing Red Bull a year ago, with his primary focus being on the 2026 car. 'It is an honor to work together again with Newey at Aston Martin,' Watanabe said. 'We will work together to create a competitive F1 car.' The move to Aston Martin does come with at least one downside, however. While Red Bull essentially has four seats for drivers between the top team and the junior Racing Bulls team, Aston Martin only has the two available seats. What's more, one of those two seats is occupied by Lance Stroll, the son of team owner Lawrence Stroll, so opportunities for Honda-affiliated drivers like Tsunoda appear limited. 'The number of seats will be reduced. However, as for us, we will continue to voice our opinions as Honda in deciding the drivers for 2026 and beyond,' Watanabe said. 'Obviously the team has the final say in deciding which drivers join the team ... but the situation will be the same (as with Red Bull) where we will have our say.' In recent weeks, there's been talk around the F1 paddock that the sport's next engine era could be short-lived. Some, including Mohammed Ben Sulayem, president of the sport's governing body, have even floated the idea of a return to internal combustion engines powered with sustainable fuel, rather than continue with the hybrid engines that have been in use since 2014. Watanabe declined to comment in detail on the issue ahead of a reported meeting among engine manufacturers set to take place at next weekend's Bahrain Grand Prix. Still, the Honda Racing boss made it clear that one of the reasons the automaker renewed its commitment to F1 was because of the hybrid electric formula. 'Our stance hasn't changed,' Watanabe said. 'Electric is important to us and that is the reason why we continue to join.'
BBC News
04-04-2025
- Automotive
- BBC News
Proposal to bring back V10 engines set to be rejected
Japanese Grand PrixVenue: Suzuka Dates: 4-6 April Race start: 06:00 BST on SundayCoverage: Live radio commentary of practice and qualifying on BBC 5 Sports Extra, race live on BBC Radio 5 Live. Live text updates on the BBC Sport website and app A proposal to bring back V10 engines to Formula 1 is set to be rejected by the sport's engine manufacturers next Ben Sulayem, the president of governing body the FIA, has been championing a plan to reintroduce high-revving, big capacity naturally aspirated engines to Sulayem has been pushing for the move to happen as early as 2028 or 2029 - despite F1 introducing a new engine formula next year that is scheduled to run until the end of under F1's governance system, the plan needs to be backed by four of the five engine manufacturers that will be in F1 next year, which are Mercedes, Ferrari, Honda, Audi and Red Bull Powertrains, which is backed by had already indicated its support for the 2026 engine formula, which retains 1.6-litre turbo hybrid engines but increases the proportion of total power provided by the electrical part of the engine to about 50% from the current 20%. These will be run on fully sustainable which abandoned plans to quit F1 because of the new rules, has now indicated it also backs hybrid engines. Koji Watanabe, president of Honda Racing Corporation, told Japan: "We know that the FIA intends to introduce naturally aspirated V10 engines from 2028. However, we have not received detailed information from the FIA. There will be meetings organised by the FIA, in which the engine manufacturers will participate, and we would like to discuss it there first."At the moment we don't have any details. We can't say whether V10s are acceptable or not in terms of efficiency. We would first like to understand the details of what is being proposed before we start a discussion."A meeting is planned, and at that meeting we want to express our point of view as engine manufacturers."As far as Honda is concerned, our reason for entering F1 again is electrification and (the type of) powertrains."Mercedes is open to discussing the idea of a new engine formula but says it would need it to retain a hybrid element for the company to stay opposition of Honda and Audi alone is enough to torpedo the plan. With Mercedes also against the idea of abandoning hybrids, it appears to have no chance of success, even though Red Bull and Ferrari are said to back the manufacturers will meet with the FIA to discuss the future of engines at the Bahrain Grand Prix on 11 FIA hopes to secure a clear answer on the manufacturers' vision for the Sulayem had signalled that the introduction of sustainable fuels, which cut the carbon emissions from an internal combustion engine from between 80-100% depending on the way the fuel is manufactured, could open the door to the return of loud, high-revving engines.V10s became the default engine in F1 from the mid-1990s until 2005, after which the sport switched to V8s, and have a resonance with a certain section of the fan Mercedes F1 boss Toto Wolff is one of a number of senior figures who have questioned whether the changing fan demographic means that V10s are no longer as younger, female fans have become interested in F1 following the Covid pandemic and the success of Netflix's Drive to Survive said: "You need to be open-minded. We're all racers, we like the engines of the past, and then you need to strike the right balance between what is exciting to us dinosaurs, screaming loud engines, and then the fanbase, and the audiences that are on the track."And maybe that has migrated a little bit from pure petrolheads to younger demographics, to feminists that are coming on to the track that haven't even been part of those years."All of this needs to be set as questions, as what are the objectives for a future regulation change in a few years, and then let's analyse that based on data and come to a conclusion that is for the best of our sport."Because this is the single most important denominator between the FIA, Formula 1, the teams, that we want to have the greatest product for our fans."
Yahoo
26-01-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
IMSA YouTube channel exceeds 2 million live views during 63rd Rolex 24
The 63rd Rolex 24 At Daytona isn't even over yet, and the international YouTube livestream of the race has already amassed more than two million views. The 2025 season opener marks the end of the first year of IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship races streaming live on YouTube. In that time, the channel has experienced exponential growth as new fans and viewers both domestically and globally have continued to discover the series through additional digital content. Starting at the 2024 Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring with a softly launched first race stream on IMSA's official YouTube channel, the momentum has steadily built over that period and is appearing to reach a crescendo with the first Daytona viewing on the channel. That Sebring race provided a starting point, with 21,000 peak concurrent views and 505,000 total live views for what was essentially a trial run to see how a WeatherTech Championship race would appear on the platform. As the anticipation built for the start of the first Rolex 24 to be streamed on IMSA's YouTube channel to an international audience, the viewership appeared before honorary starter Koji Watanabe, President of Honda Racing Corporation, even waved the green flag to start the race (pictured). Before the race start, 20,000 people were 'waiting' before the race went live. Once the race was underway, the race hit a new peak concurrent viewership number of 72,000. The YouTube feed achieved a milestone number of live views by the end of Saturday with over 1,000,000. It got even better as of Sunday morning, with that number eclipsing 2,000,000 live views. On the whole, the IMSA YouTube channel has nearly tripled in subscribers in the last 12 months and is approaching 730,000 subscribers as the Rolex 24 nears its conclusion. The domestic broadcast continues on NBC and Peacock in the U.S. as part of a long-term partnership extended for multiple years. Alongside it, the YouTube growth on the digital front has been a remarkable success story. Beyond the international race coverage, the channel has also grown along with the popular YouTube docuseries 'Win the Weekend' Presented by Michelin. A third season of 'Win the Weekend' is set to premiere shortly after the Rolex 24, with content captured during the weekend set to feature. Both series have delivered more than 15 million views to help increase the subscriber count and grow the IMSA audience. 'We tried something last year at Sebring without any promotion that has taken our YouTube channel subscribers on the IMSA YouTube channel from 250,000 subscribers to knock it on the door of 700,000 before today's race starts,' said IMSA President John Doonan in a prerace interview session. 'At peak last year at Sebring, there was 21,000 viewers watching the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring. Now it's geo-blocked in the U.S., and certain few other countries. But in France, Germany, the UK, obviously in Asia, Australia, you name it, fans around the world can take it in free, on YouTube on the IMSA YouTube channel, flag-to-flag.' The remainder of the 63rd Rolex 24 At Daytona continues to stream on the official IMSA YouTube channel to the finish, alongside the NBC and Peacock feeds for domestic TV. Story originally appeared on Racer
