Single-seaters Working with Honda, Mugen has gradually expanded its sporting involvement to all levels of the sport. In 1986, Formula 3000 was introduced into Japan and Mugen joined forces with Honda to build an F3000 engine. It was introduced in the 1987 season and leased to 14 teams. The following year, Mugen won four of the top five places in the Japanese F3000 championship. In 1989, Mugen entered European F3000 with the MF308 engine and won the championship with
Jean Alesi, driving an
Eddie Jordan Racing Reynard. The same year the company produced its own prototype 3.5L
V8 Formula One engine, codenamed MF350. In 1988, Mugen started tuning Honda engines for use in
Formula Three, winning the Japanese series with
Akihiko Nakaya, and in 1990 expanded their business to Europe. The same year, Mugen won its first
Formula Three championships in Europe, taking the French title with
Éric Hélary, and the British crown with
Mika Häkkinen at the wheel of a
West Surrey Racing Ralt, which repeated the title in 1991 with
Rubens Barrichello. As F3000 became a spec-series in Europe starting in 1996 with the
Lola-
Judd combo, the Japanese series responded by making Mugen the sole supplier to the Japanese championship, now redubbed Formula Nippon. M-TEC lost the supply contract for the 2006 season, with the rules changing to allow
Toyota associate
TOM'S to join Mugen as engine supplier. Mugen continues to enjoy success in the Formula Three circuit with its tuned 2.0 L Honda engines, having won 9 titles in Asia (8 of which in Japan) since 1988, as well as 19 titles in Europe (15 of them in Britain), and 13 in Latin America. As of 2017, Mugen Formula engines still enjoy use and success across the various European
hillclimb championships, employed in former Formula chassis and dedicated hillclimb prototypes.
Formula One Formula One team between and . In 1991 Mugen prepared Honda
V10 engines for
Tyrrell (based on engines used by
McLaren in and ), but the following year these engines were renamed Mugen MF351H and were transferred to the
Footwork team, with drivers
Aguri Suzuki and
Michele Alboreto. Although Honda withdrew from the sport at the end of 1992 season, Mugen remained affiliated with Footwork in 1993 and created a B version of the MF351H, used by Aguri Suzuki and
Derek Warwick. of the type driven by
Olivier Panis at the 1996 Monaco Grand Prix, on display. At the end of the year, Mugen switched to
Team Lotus with plans for a new
Lotus 109. The team—with drivers
Johnny Herbert and
Pedro Lamy (later replaced by
Alessandro Zanardi)—was underfunded and the 109 chassis was late arriving. The Mugen engine, codenamed MF351HC (also known as ZA5C), was not able to show its full potential and failed to score a single World Championship point during 1994 despite coming close on 3 occasions. This was the only season in which Mugen engines (and Lotus) did not score a World Championship point during their time in Formula One. After Lotus closed at the end of the year, Mugen switched to the
Ligier team, which was then being run for
Flavio Briatore by
Tom Walkinshaw, with drivers
Olivier Panis,
Martin Brundle and Aguri Suzuki, although it was initially planned for the
Minardi team. The 3.0 L engine, conforming to the new regulations, was codenamed MF301H. The 1995 season was promising with points being scored at nine races and the team securing two podiums, one courtesy of Brundle finishing third at the Belgian Grand Prix and the other by Panis finishing second at the Australian Grand Prix. The team secured 24 points and finished a respectable 5th in the Constructors Championship. The following season with Ligier resulted in Mugen's first
Formula One victory as well as Ligier's last Formula One victory at the
1996 Monaco Grand Prix with Panis at the wheel. Despite this unexpected success, the Mugen powered Ligier car only scored three more points finishes during the rest of the season two 6th-place finishes from Diniz and one 5th-place finish from Panis; the team suffered 17 retirements during 1996. Ligier was taken over by
Alain Prost in 1997, and the newly named
Prost Grand Prix ran MF301HB engines with
Jarno Trulli leading the
Austrian Grand Prix before suffering an engine failure. The Prost team managed two podium finishes during the 1997 season at Brazil and Spain, scoring points in 8 races over the season securing a final total of 21 points and a 6th-place finish in the Constructors Championship. With Prost establishing a relationship with
Peugeot and switching to them from 1998 onwards, Mugen looked for a new partner and reached a two-year agreement with
Jordan Grand Prix for which Mugen produced the MF301HC engine. The first half of the 1998 season was an absolute disaster; it was so bad that at one point Mugen officials met with Eddie Jordan and his team during the
1998 Monaco Grand Prix to find out why up until then the team had failed to score a single World Championship point. The relationship continued at Silverstone where the team scored their first World Championship point of the season courtesy of a 6th-place finish from Ralf Schumacher, followed by points finishes at the next 3 races. It was not until
Spa-Francorchamps, when Jordan's fortunes changed for the better with drivers
Damon Hill and
Ralf Schumacher scored a 1–2 finish securing Jordan's first ever Formula One victory and their only 1–2 finish during their existence after a crash-marred start. The team would score points on two further occasions with Ralf achieving a 3rd-place finish at the Italian Grand Prix.
Gary Anderson would years later reveal that, by that season, Honda's headquarters had increased their involvement in developing the engines that otherwise still carry Mugen branding. The 1999 season resulted in further success with
Heinz-Harald Frentzen winning twice in France and Italy combined with podiums in Australia, Brazil, Germany and Belgium, at one stage of the season Frentzen was even challenging for the Drivers' title, although he failed in doing so due to better performance from McLaren and Ferrari. Jordan and Mugen ended the season in 3rd place in the Constructors' standings with 61 points which was their best placed finish in their history. The season which was Mugen's final year in Formula One was not as successful. While Frentzen did score 2 podiums in Brazil and the USA, Jordan only scored 17 points which was over 44 points fewer than 1999 and the team suffered over 16 retirements. Jordan and Mugen ultimately finished 6th in the Constructors' standings and, crucially, 3 points behind
British American Racing (which ran fully factory Honda engines in their return as an engine supplier) who finished in 5th and with 20 points. After another season (the other being 1992) of having both Honda and Mugen engines racing together, Mugen left Formula One at the end of season, leaving only Honda to supply the engines to Jordan as well in 2001 and 2002. Mugen-built engines were also used for the
RC101B/RC-F1 2.0X, a car built by the Honda R&D Center without direct support from Honda headquarters (previous cars built by the R&D Center used older Honda engines when they supplied engines for McLaren) and for the
Honda RA099, an official Honda test car to prepare for Honda's factory engine supply operation.
Sportscar racing In 1998, Mugen built four NSX models, two for the Mugen/
Dome partnership, one for Team Kunimitsu and one for
Nakajima Racing. The cars were fast but unreliable at first, until the Nakajima NSX scored the car's first win at the fourth round in Fuji. This was followed by three more wins (one of them by the Mugen/Dome team), which led to a second place championship finish for
Tom Coronel and
Kouji Yamanishi. In 1999, the Honda took three more wins, one of those with the Mugen/Dome team of
Juichi Wakisaka and
Katsutomo Kaneishi scoring a victory at the opening round in Suzuka and finishing the third best team in the championship. In 2000, the Mugen/Dome team was champion with
Ryo Michigami, but the car's performance was limited by regulation changes and Michigami reached the title without a single win. Still, Honda won four races, one of them by the second Mugen/Dome car. In 2001, Mugen concentrated once more in the JGTC, the NSX winning two races, and finishing second (Mugen/Dome) and third (ARTA) in the series. More importantly, in June, the company announced development of a new 4.0 L V8, dubbed MF408S, for the main prototype class in the
24 Hours of Le Mans and
American Le Mans Series. At the time, Mugen acknowledged that international sportscar racing was a new category for them. The concept of the MF408S was high power, compact size, durability and reliability. Mugen chose a 4.0 L (N/A) Naturally aspirated engine because they felt through their experience in Formula Three that restrictor size was key to performance. The idea was to save fuel with a smaller displacement engine, since, theoretically, restrictor size will bring power in any engine to a similar level. The main engines in use at the time were producing around 600 hp, including the turbocharged
Audi and
Cadillac, as well as the larger displacement
BMW and the
Roush-prepared
Ford. Mugen excluded a turbo as this necessitated use of intercoolers to extract maximum performance, which added to the weight and reduced performance. 2002 was a good year for Mugen at the track. The Mugen-prepared NSXs won five rounds, with the Mugen/Dome team winning two races outright, which gave them the Team's championship title. The debut of the MF408S was in a
Panoz chassis in the 2002
Sebring 12 Hours, first round of ALMS. In 2004, M-TEC decided to drop down to GT300 and help train Japanese drivers for GT500 speeds. By grabbing promising drivers early in their careers, M-TEC would then be able to mold them and have definite access to future champions. M-TEC driver,
Hiroyuki Yagi, was sourced from the
Integra Series. Giving the drivers experience was more important than developing the car to take the championship. To this end, M-TEC simply detuned the car for the GT300 class without optimizing it for the new power level. Winning the GT300 series by one point over the
ARTA Garaiya was simply an unintended bonus for a dedicated, championship-level team. Breaking into the
United States is another goal for the M-TEC team and the Mugen name. Currently, the authorized dealer of Mugen parts in the US is King Motorsports. Team director
Junichi Kumakura thought racing the NSX in the United States was a great way to promote the company in a previously unvisited environment. When asked what else M-TEC would like to accomplish in America with the golden NSX, competing at
Sebring and
Daytona were marked as attractive goals.
MF408S Engine Technical Specifications • Engine Name: MF408S • Engine: 90° V8, naturally aspirated • Displacement: 4,000 cm3 • Bore x Stroke: 97 mm x 67 mm • Max Power: Over @ 9,500 rpm • Max Torque: Over @ 7,500 rpm By 2019, Mugen has won five TT Zero races using its Shinden bikes. ;2012 Making their competitive debut at the
2012 Isle of Man TT,
John McGuinness took the Mugen Shinden Ni to second place behind the
MotoCzysz of
Michael Rutter at an average speed of 109.527 mph. ;2013 At the 2013 TT Mugen again finished runners up to
MotoCzysz, with Rutter and McGuinness repeating the previous year's result. ;2014 Mugen's development has continued at subsequent races in the
TT Zero Category. Fielding two machines at the
2014 Isle of Man TT,
John McGuinness secured their maiden victory ahead of teammate
Bruce Anstey who took second place on the other Shinden San. ;2015 At the 2015 TT McGuinness and Anstey again took the first two spots on the rostrum. ;2016 Mugen continued their dominance in the
TT Zero class at the
Isle of Man TT Races in 2016, when
Bruce Anstey took the honours, although their other machine, ridden by
John McGuinness, retired during the one lap event. ;2017 Anstey and
Guy Martin came first and second respectively, both riding Mugen machines. ;2018 The Mugen motorcycles achieved first and third place with Michael Rutter and Lee Johnston respectively, split by Daley Mathison riding for the
University of Nottingham. Rutter broke the 120 mph barrier to set a new lap record of .
2019 Mugen achieved their sixth consecutive victory with Michael Rutter again increasing the lap record average speed to 121.91 mph. John McGuinness followed his team-mate home to complete a 1-2 finish for the team. ==Vehicles==