The hottest buzz in sport is F1. As new and old fans surf the web for information, Honda leads the way in providing the definitive Formula One website.

After years in the doldrums amid claims that the sport became boring, this season motor racing has made a comeback to the fore of the sport pages. This could be put down to the emergence of a rookie British driver making waves in his debut season, the retirement of the decade-dominating Michael Schumacher, the scandal of illegally held information between the top two constructors, or advances in technology leading to a better competition involving more than a few drivers. Whichever way, F1 is back on the map. As the sport is thrust into the spotlight once again, fans will take to the internet to get the latest news and follow the fares of the constructors and drivers. The Honda Racing F1 Team has revamped its website in order to stand out from other leading F1 sites. Find out more by visiting www.hondaracingf1.com.

JL: Jason Loader, creative director
AR: Andrew Rees, lead designer
DG: Daniel Goulding, lead developer
SS: Shane Seward, ActionScripting
WD: William Dron, content editor

Web Designer: Briefly, how would you sum up what the new Honda Racing Team site is supposed to represent or deliver as an experience for those who haven’t visited it yet?

AR: The Honda Racing F1 Team website can be summed up as a dynamic, interactive magazine. It has been designed to communicate all aspects of the team in a clear, engaging way to both the hard-core fan and the casual visitor.

The site makes use of magazine-style layouts and bold typography. Many of the page layouts are based on a square grid, and this device has been used to link the pages together on a virtual ‘table top’, giving the site a sense of unity and movement.

Content on the site is updated on a daily basis throughout the year, ensuring that the visitors can always get the latest news, images and information about the Honda Racing F1 Team. The site makes heavy use of video, and as an extension of the magazine concept, the videos are released twice-weekly

WD: Fingal has been Honda F1’s exclusive worldwide marketing and exploitation agency since 1999, responsible for maximising the full potential of the company’s Formula One programme throughout its global markets. As part of this far-reaching brief, we have been given the task of creating and managing the online presence, providing new forward-thinking and innovative solutions every couple of years. On top of the design and development work, Fingal’s duties include providing editorial news and creating the ongoing interactive content, such as competitions.

The latest website was developed after competing Formula One teams began to close the gap in terms of design, functionality and content. It was clear that the old design and structure, while original and modern at the time of launch in January 2005, was being imitated elsewhere. In early 2006, Fingal approached Honda to consider a major rebuild and Honda jumped at the chance to move ahead of the competition once again.

WD: How much input did the Honda Racing F1 Team have in terms of suggesting design ideas for the site or shaping the overall vision?

WD: It was Honda’s intention to provide a number of standout features that would break new ground and provide its fanbase with the definitive Formula One website. The client was conscious that video content is rapidly becoming the must-have feature of a brand website. Through behind-the-scenes video features, the Honda Racing F1 Team realised it could bring the exclusive world of Formula One into the homes of the general public, no longer limiting them to just the qualifying and races. So was born Honda Racing TV.

Honda also wanted to engage fans in other ways and Fingal suggested a number of solutions, including the Fans’ Gallery, which allows users to upload their own images and videos. The functionality and competition mechanic, whereby users send in the best content relating to a monthly topic, was developed by Fingal.

WD: It seems like the final design makes good use of community-driven features for uploading content from fans. Was this a conscious effort to introduce some Web 2.0 style functionality and why was that important to you?

AR: A sports team website really provides the ideal opportunity to introduce some Web 2.0 functionality. Formula One teams have many committed and involved fans, and the web is a great format to encourage a community and give the fans greater contact with the team.

WD: In fact, we already had RSS news feeds on the previous website, but engaging the fans and providing a service that no other F1 team provides is of high importance to Honda. The new design allowed us to do this in a much more involving and engaging way, and we expect to build on the Web 2.0 technologies in the future.

WD: How long did the project take and how many development staff were involved?

AR: The deadlines for the project were quite tight, as we wanted to get the site up early in the 2007 racing season. The project took ten weeks to complete in total, including planning and testing.

In total we had eight people working on the project at various times, but at the core of the project there was one designer, one ActionScripter, two PHP developers and a content editor. We also had our translation agency working on the localisation.

WD: What were the biggest development challenges that were encountered during the production of hondaracingf1.com?

AR: It was quite a design challenge to produce layouts that worked both as individual pages and as part of the ‘table top’ grid, and a technical challenge to link all the pages seamlessly together.

The Flash version of the site is also in Japanese; it was a design challenge ensuring that all the layouts also worked in this language, and a technical one ensuring the layouts were replicated with the minimal change to the ActionScript.

SS: One of the major challenges of the Flash site was to achieve a ‘magazine-style’ layout. To achieve this we deviated from the normal way of presenting copy, using text blocks and scrollbars. Instead we opted for magazine style columns, with surplus copy being controlled by pagination. Bespoke components were developed to accurately and efficiently distribute the copy between columns within each layout template.

WD: Which parts of the website are the development staff most proud of and why?

DG: The initial design concept called for many hard-toachieve features, including fully integrated video, dynamic 3D effects and full-screen motion. We’re very proud that no compromises had to be made, and that all challenges were met within the deadlines.

DG: The design concept relied on a column layout for all text; to have this working with dynamic text not only for one, but for two languages posed a surprisingly hard challenge. Achieving this was of great satisfaction for the developers.

It was also great to get a chance to experiment with 3D in Flash. The resulting box flips are subtle, but again help to bring the site to life.

AR: From the design point of view, after weeks of dealing with flats, it was great to see the full-screen virtual ‘table top’ transition working. This vividly brings the whole site to life and gives more of a sense of unity to the site as a whole.

WD: What key technologies were used during the site build and why were they chosen within the context of creating and running hondaracingf1.com?

AR: The site was designed initially as flats, using Fireworks, Photoshop and Illustrator. The designer then developed the concepts and feel of the transitions, before the whole site was coded in AS2. We decided on using Flash as it was the best solution for combining video with the dynamic magazine feel that we were looking for. There is also a nine language XHTML version coded using CSS.

DG: All of the content on the site can be updated by the client through a custom-built content management system. This is built using PHP with a MySQL database.

Because of the amount and size of the video we are using on the site, we made sure to do plenty of server testing before the launch of the site. This allowed us to select the correct compromise of size and bit rate for the videos. To ensure that we would have no bandwidth problems at peak times, Honda has engaged the Akamai global network to host all of the video content.

WD: How does the site stack up in terms of the design and general capabilities when compared to some of the other leading F1 team websites?

AR/WD: The Honda Racing F1 Team’s website has been designed to make sure it stands out from the competition in several ways:

It provides the user with lots of videos through Honda Racing TV. Many of these contain interesting behind-thescenes features, driver and team personal interviews and technical insights that fans would otherwise not have access to. Honda Racing TV is an ongoing challenge but provides real benefit to fans of Honda and motor racing in general.

Rather than providing a few low-resolution images, the site allows users to download images from an archive of over 3,000 images, all provided at a size of 1,280 x 1,024. This is something that Honda is unique in providing and has done so since 1999.

The clear layout also stands out from other rival Formula One websites; design considerations are at the heart of the site, and this pays off with a distinctive user experience.

The HTML version is also available in nine languages, continuing Honda’s tradition as the Formula One team with the most accessible website.

WD: Will Fingal/John Brown Publishing be involved in any future updates of the site and would you have any early ideas for things you’d like to add or introduce down the line?

WD: We are working on a stunning 3D animation of the car around one of the F1 circuits, including an interactive element that will allow users to explore the Honda RA107 F1 car and find out more about each area of the machine.

RSS will also be employed within the news area and may be rolled out into the images or Honda Racing TV sections, allowing subscribers to know exactly when new content is available.

As part of our refit we will be continuously adding to the sticky content such as Honda Racing TV features, editorial features, news stories, wallpapers, screensavers and images so that the site is kept fresh and visitors will return to the site.

We are also developing HTML websites for media, local Honda markets and team sponsors to allow them to exploit Honda’s F1 programme.

The work for the Honda Racing F1 Team is ongoing and it’s our intention to always keep one step ahead of our competition.

A portion of this interview was originally published in Web Designer Issue 135.