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Los Angeles firefighters were hampered by a lack of resources for red flag weather conditions in their initial response to the Palisades fire, an internal after-action review report found.

The long-awaited 70-page report, produced by the Los Angeles Fire Department, was released late Wednesday afternoon on the heels of an announcement by federal prosecutors that they had arrested and charged a man with intentionally setting a fire on Jan. 1 that later reignited and became the Palisades fire.

Federal investigators determined that the Jan. 7 fire was a so-called holdover from the Jan. 1 fire, continuing to smolder and burn underground after firefighters thought they had extinguished it. The investigators said that heavy winds six days later caused the underground fire to surface and spread above ground in what became one of the costliest and most destructive disasters in city history.

In its after-action report, the Fire Department listed almost 100 challenges that firefighters faced during the Palisades fire, including an inability to secure the origin of the fire, an ineffective process for recalling firefighters who were off-duty to come back into work, and fire chiefs with little to no experience handling such a major incident. During the initial attack, the report said, most firefighters worked for more than 36 hours without rest.

The report cited a delay in communicating evacuation orders, which resulted in spontaneous evacuations without structured traffic control, causing people to block routes to the fire, the report said. The initial staging area, which was in the path of the evacuation route and the fire, was consumed by flames within 30 minutes, the report said.

The Palisades fire, which started at 10:30 a.m. Jan. 7, was one of the costliest and most destructive disasters in city history, leveling thousands of homes and killing 12 people.

A Times investigation found that LAFD officials did not pre-deploy any engines to the Palisades ahead of the fire, despite warnings about extreme weather. In preparing for the winds, the department staffed up only five of more than 40 engines available to supplement the regular firefighting force.

Those engines could have been pre-positioned in the Palisades and elsewhere, as had been done in the past during similar weather.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Federal investigators have determined that the wildfire that leveled much of Pacific Palisades on Jan. 7 was a so-called “holdover” from a smaller fire that was set intentionally on New Year’s Day, about a week earlier.

After Los Angeles firefighters suppressed the Jan. 1 fire known as the Lachman fire, it continued to smolder and burn underground, “unbeknownst to anyone,” according to federal officials. They said heavy winds six days later caused the underground fire to surface and spread above ground in what became one of the costliest and most destructive disasters in city history.

The revelations — unveiled in a criminal complaint and attached affidavit Wednesday charging the alleged arsonist, Jonathan Rinderknecht — raise questions about what the Los Angeles Fire Department could have done to prevent the conflagration in the days leading up to the expected windstorm on Jan. 7 and the extraordinary fire risk that would come with it.

“This affidavit puts the responsibility on the fire department,” said Ed Nordskog, former head of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s arson unit. “There needs to be a commission examining why this rekindled fire was allowed to reignite.”

He added: “The arsonist set the first fire, but the Fire Department proactively has a duty to do certain things.”

A Times investigation found that LAFD officials did not pre-deploy any engines to the Palisades ahead of the Jan. 7 fire, despite warnings about extreme weather. In preparing for the winds, the department staffed up only five of more than 40 engines available to supplement the regular firefighting force.

Those engines could have been pre-positioned in the Palisades and elsewhere, as had been done in the past during similar weather.

Kenny Cooper, special agent in charge of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives who was involved in the investigation into the Palisades fire’s origin, said the blame for the fire’s re-ignition lies solely with the person who started it.

“That fire burned deep within the ground, in roots and in structure, and remained active for several days,” Cooper said. “No matter how good they are, they can’t see that, right?”

But, he said, wildland firefighters commonly patrol for days or weeks to prevent re-ignitions.

When he worked at a state forestry agency, he said, “we would have a lightning strike, and it would hit a tree, and it would burn for days, sometimes weeks, and then ignite into a forest fire. We would go suppress that, and then every day, for weeks on end, we would patrol those areas to make sure they didn’t reignite,” he said. “If we saw evidence of smoke or heat, then we would provide resources to that. So that, I know that’s a common practice, and it’s just, it’s a very difficult fire burning underground.”

The affidavit provides a window into the firefighting timeline on Jan. 1, when just after midnight, the Lachman fire was ignited near a small clearing near the Temescal Ridge Trail.

12:13 a.m.: An image taken from a UCSD camera, approximately two-tenths of a mile away, shows a bright spot in the upper left — the Lachman fire.

12:20 a.m.: Rinderknecht drives down Palisades Drive, passing fire engines heading up Palisades Drive, responding to the fire.

That night, the LAFD, with help from the Los Angeles County Fire Department, used water drops from aircraft and hose lines, as well as handlines dug by L.A. County crews, to attack the fire, according to the complaint. Firefighters continued suppression efforts during the day on Jan. 1, wetting down areas within the fire perimeter. When the suppression efforts were over, the affidavit said, the fire crews left fire hoses on site, in case they needed to be redeployed.

Jan. 2: LAFD personnel returned to the scene to collect the fire hoses. According to the affidavit, it appeared to them that the fire was fully extinguished.

But investigators determined that during the Lachman fire, a firebrand became seated within the dense vegetation, continuing to smolder and burn within the roots underground. Strong winds brought the embers to the surface, to grow into a deadly conflagration.

In latest development of his weapons arsenal, Kim supervised the test of a new solid-fuel rocket engine for North Korea’s ICBMs.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has overseen a test of a new rocket engine designed for intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that he described as marking a “significant change in expanding and strengthening” the country’s strategic nuclear forces.

The country’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Tuesday that the successful test marked the ninth and final ground test of the solid-fuel rocket engine, built with carbon fibre and capable of producing 1,971 kilonewtons of thrust – a measure of propulsive force which is more powerful than earlier North Korean rocket engines.

The KCNA said that Kim expressed satisfaction after Monday’s test, calling the “eye-opening” development of the new rocket engine a “significant change” in North Korean nuclear capabilities.

The announcement that tests on the solid-fuel rocket are now complete comes a week after Kim visited the research institute that developed the engine, and where he unveiled that a next-generation Hwasong-20 ICBM is currently under development.

The development of North Korea’s ICBM arsenal adds to Pyongyang’s efforts in recent years to build weapons that pose as a viable threat to the continental United States, according to defence analysts.

Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions are seen as a means to bolster North Korea’s status as a nuclear power and give it leverage in negotiating economic and security concessions with the US and other world powers.

North Korea also marked the 77th anniversary of its founding on Tuesday, by the current leader’s grandfather, Kim Il-sung.

In a separate report, KCNA said that Chinese President Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory letter to Kim and called for strengthened “strategic communication” between Beijing and Pyongyang.

“The Chinese side is ready to join hands in promoting the China-DPRK friendship and the socialist cause of the two countries through the intensified strategic communication and brisk visits and close cooperation with the DPRK side,” Xi wrote, using the acronym for North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Last week, Kim joined Russian President Vladimir Putin and Xi in Beijing for China’s Victory Day Parade commemorating the end of World War II.

Analysts have said that the rare trip to an international gathering of world leaders was a diplomatic win for Kim, who has fortified his alliance with Russia and China.

Sept. 5 (UPI) — The European Commission on Friday fined Google $3.455 billion for violating the European Union’s anti-competitive practices in advertising technology, prompting a threat by U.S. President Donald Trump to impose higher tariffs.

Earlier this week, a U.S. federal judge ordered the U.S.-headquartered company to hand over its search results and some data to rival companies. The Justice Department challenged Google’s dominance in online search. But Google avoided having to sell off its Chrome browser or Android operating system.

The DOJ also is suing Google in another advertising case with the trial set to start later this month.

Trump, in a post on Truth Social, said the fine is “effectively taking money that would otherwise go to American Investments and Jobs.

“We cannot let this happen to brilliant and unprecedented American Ingenuity and, if it does, I will be forced to start a Section 301 proceeding to nullify the unfair penalties being charged to these Taxpaying American Companies.”

In a follow-up post five minutes later, Trump said Google has paid in the past “13 Billion in false claims and charged for a total of $16.5 Billion.”

On July 27, Trump reached a deal with EU in July for a 15% levy on most imports from Europe. The European bloc agreed to purchase $750 billion worth of energy from the U.S., and invest $600 billion more in other areas.

The European Commission, which represents 27 nations, said it fined Google “for breaching EU antitrust rules by distorting competition in the advertising technology industry (‘adtech’). It did so by favoring its own online display advertising technology services to the detriment of competing providers of advertising technology services, advertisers and online publishers,” according to a news release.

Google has 60 days how it intends to “bring these self-preferencing practices to an end and to implement measures to cease its inherent conflicts of interest along the adtech supply chain.”

The commission noted that advertisers and publishers rely on digital tools for the placement of real-time ads not linked to a search query, such as banner ads in websites of newspapers.

The EC began investigating Google in 2021. Investigators found that since 2014 Google “abused such dominant positions in breach of Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.”

“Today’s decision shows that Google abused its dominant position in adtech harming publishers, advertisers and consumers,” Teresa Ribera, the European Commission’s top antitrust regulator, said in a statement. “Google must now come forward with a serious remedy to address its conflicts of interest, and if it fails to do so, we will not hesitate to impose strong remedies.

“Digital markets exist to serve people and must be grounded in trust and fairness. And when markets fail, public institutions must act to prevent dominant players from abusing their power. True freedom means a level playing field, where everyone competes on equal terms and citizens have a genuine right to choose.

Google plans to appeal.

“There’s nothing anticompetitive in providing services for ad buyers and sellers, and there are more alternatives to our services than ever before,” Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google’s global head of regulatory affairs, said in a statement to The New York Times.

A variety of businesses, small and large, advertise on Google’s search engine. Google’s automated system finds and indexes webpages. In 2024, Google began providing artificial intelligence summaries through AI Mode.

Google has an 89.93% woldwide market share of search engines with Microsoft Bing second at 3.95%, Russia’s Yandex third at 2.21% and Apollo Global Management’s Yahoo fourth at 1.48%, according to StatCounter.

Google processes approximately 16.4 billion searches per day.

In 2023, Google had $264.59 billion in ad revenue, mainly from search, according to Statista. The company’s total revenue was 305.63 billion.

Google was founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who developed a search algorithm called “BackRub” at Stanford University. In 2021, the ad revenue was 70 million.

The name Google is a misspelling of Googol, the number 1 followed by 100 zeros.

Google’s parent company is Alphabet, which was formed in 2015 through restructuring. It is the world’s third-largest tech company in terms of revenue behind Amazon and Apple. Alphabet’s total revenue was $350 billion in 2024 with the market capitalization now $2.83 trillion.

In mid-day trading on Nasdaq, Alphabet’s stock was up $1.59 to $233.89.

Besides Chrome, Android and its search engine, other Google businesses include Google Cloud, Google Maps and Waze, Google Pixel, Next and YouTube.

The 35-year-old builder, named locally as Andrea Russo, somehow managed to bypass multiple layers of security before reaching a moving plane at Milan Bergamo Airport

The man who died after reportedly getting sucked into an aeroplane’s engine was neither a passenger or an employee at the airport, its boss said.

The 35-year-old man, named locally as Andrea Russo, ran onto the tarmac at Milan Bergamo Airport, the third-busiest international airport in Italy on Tuesday. He then got sucked into a plane’s engine, it is said, as the aircraft attempted to take off.

Giovanni Sanga, CEO of the group which operates Milan Bergamo Airport, has today expressed his “personal condolences” to the man’s family and offered fresh detail about what happened at the hub, a base for Ryanair and other airlines. He said the man, thought to have been a builder, actively “approached the aircraft of a scheduled flight” in the harrowing moments that led to his death.

Flights had been suspended and cancelled but the airport’s website now says all operations are scheduled, including flights from Edinburgh and London Stansted, to leave and arrive on time this morning.

Mr Sanga said: “The dramatic event has shocked the entire airport community. First of all, I would like to express my personal condolences and those of the company to the victim’s family, to whom we are close in this terrible moment.”

READ MORE: Milan Bergamo Airport: Man ‘sucked into plane engine’ and killed identified

Mr Sanga added: “From the very beginning, in addition to ensuring the immediate management of the emergency and assistance to passengers and crew, we turned our attention to the colleagues who witnessed the episode and were deeply affected by it.

“At 10:35am on July 8, at Milan Bergamo airport, a person, neither a passenger nor an employee of companies operating at the airport, despite the prompt counteraction of the police forces present, managed to enter the aircraft apron, then reaching the taxiway. Here he approached the aircraft of a scheduled flight, stationary and with its engines running, losing his life.

“The exact dynamics of the incident are being examined by the judicial authorities to whom SACBO (The Bergamo Milan airport authority) continues to provide all the necessary collaboration. The company, in coordination with the relevant bodies, immediately activated emergency procedures and assistance to the flight passengers, crew and ground personnel involved, also making psychological support services available.”

When all flights were halted at around 10.20am on Tuesday local time, SACBO said “a problem occurred on the taxiway”. Mr Sanga’s statement is the first time the group has given more detail about what happened.

The plane, an Airbus A319 of the Volotea airline, was flying to Asturias, Spain. It, and all other departures, were stopped as emergency services descended on the tarmac.

Milan Bergamo Airport in Orio al Serio, northern Italy, catered for more than 15 million passengers in 2023. Some 500,000 of those headed to and from Stansted Airport, typically on Ryanair flights.

June 23 (UPI) — NASA fired up a full-duration test of its new RS-25 engine that will power the Space Launch System rocket on Artemis missions to the moon, the space agency announced Monday.

NASA tested RS-25 engine No. 20001 on Friday at the Fred Haise Test Stand at NASA’s Stennis Space Center at Bay St. Louis in Mississippi. The full-duration “hot fire” test was the first since NASA completed certification testing for new production RS-25 engines last year.

The engine, built by contractor L3Harris Technologies — formerly Aerojet Rocketdyne — was fired up for nearly eight-and-a-half minutes. That is the same amount of time it would take four RS-25 engines to launch an SLS rocket, sending astronauts aboard the Orion into orbit. The engine was also fired up to the 111% power level to test its limits.

The test was conducted by a team from NASA, L3Harris and Syncom Space Services, which is the contractor for site facilities. All RS-25 engines are being tested and proven flightworthy at NASA Stennis after the space agency completed its RS-25 certification test series in April 2024.

“The newly produced engines on future SLS rockets will maintain the high reliability and safe flight operational legacy the RS-25 is known for while enabling more affordable high-performance engines for the next era of deep space exploration,” Johnny Heflin, SLS liquid engines manager, said last year.

The RS-25 engine dates back to the 1960s, with a previous iteration of Rocketdyne from the 1970s. NASA’s first space shuttle flight used RS-25 engines to launch in April 1981.

It will take four RS-25 engines, producing a combined 8.8 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, to launch the SLS rocket for Artemis missions.

NASA is targeting the first crewed Artemis mission, Artemis II, for April 2026. It will be the first crewed mission beyond low Earth orbit since Apollo 17 in 1972. During Artemis II, four astronauts will make a trip around the moon. Artemis III will include a lunar landing, which is currently scheduled for 2027.

At the top of a hill in a sprawling Santa Clarita industrial park in the shadow of Magic Mountain’s roller coasters, a significant chapter in the history of motorsports was written.

But the story isn’t finished yet.

From the outside, the building is nothing special. Behind its walls, however, Honda Racing Corporation has designed, tested and built the engines that have won 14 of the last 21 IndyCar championships and all five IndyCar races this season. In Sunday’s Indianapolis 500, a race Honda has won 15 times since 2004, four of the top six starters will have Honda engines, including two-time winner Takuma Sato, who qualified second.

It’s a level of dominance unmatched in IndyCar history — in a series Honda probably helped save.

A technician works on an engine at Honda Racing Corporation. All of Honda’s engines for North American racing series are built in Santa Clarita.

(Robert Hanashiro / For the Times)

Amid the open-wheel civil war between Championship Auto Racing Teams and the Indy Racing League, Honda was prepared to walk away. Robert Clarke, who started Honda Performance Development (before it was renamed HRC in 2024) and made it a cutting-edge research and development facility, convinced American Honda president Koichi Amemiya to supply engines to IRL teams in 2003 after Honda left CART in 2002.

“It just was not Honda’s image of what a race car should be. That’s why Honda initially didn’t want to be involved,” Clarke said. “In my discussion with the president it was ‘OK, we developed all these skills and know-how. Are we just going to give that up and just walk away?’ That’s crazy.

”We invested literally billions of dollars. And we’ve seen the success.”

Chevrolet and Toyota eventually did quit, leaving Honda as the only IndyCar engine manufacturer for six seasons. Amemiya then doubled down, funding Honda’s move to its 123,000-square-foot home while expanding its workforce to 250 from an original staff of fewer than 10.

Honda hasn’t looked in the rearview mirror since.

Clarke, 75, left Honda in 2008 though he’s still something of an executive emeritus, one who wears the brand on his sleeve and often refers to the company with the collective pronoun “we.”

Robert Clarke, left, speaks to IndyCar driver Dario Franchitti at Mid-Ohio Race Course in July 2007.

(Jay LaPrete / Associated Press)

He was 10 when his father took him to his first race to watch a friend run in an amateur open-wheel event. When young Robert was invited into the garage and allowed to work on the car “I was hooked,” he said. “My bedroom walls were covered with pictures of Formula One cars and all kinds of racing.”

He took the long road to Honda racing, though, studying architecture and art/industrial design in college, then teaching for five years at Notre Dame. His first job at Honda was in the motorcycle accessory and product planning departments but when the company announced it was going to enter open-wheel racing, Clarke volunteered and he was soon tasked with building the program from the ground up.

That was in 1993. By the time Clarke left Honda 15 years later, the company’s place as a major force in IndyCar racing was secure and Honda’s two-story hilltop headquarters became his legacy.

The focus of work in the building now is mainly on supporting Honda teams in IndyCar and the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. As such, it has become a one-stop shop for racing teams, housing comprehensive engine research and development operations; prototype and production parts manufacturing; engine preparation and rebuilding; a material analysis facilities; more than a half-dozen engine dynamometer test cells; a machine shop; electronics lab; parts center; multiple conference rooms; and administrative offices.

A view of the machine shop at the at the Honda Racing Corporation in Santa Clarita.

(Robert Hanashiro / For the Times)

Next year it will provide support for Honda’s effort to supply Formula One engines to Aston Martin.

Mostly the building is a maze of quiet office space where engineers sketch out their designs on computer screens, well-lit assembly bays where mechanics assemble the prototypes, and the noisy high-tech dyno rooms where those prototypes are tested. Every stage of a racing engine, from conception and construction to being shipped to the track, is managed at the facility.

“We develop the technology quickly,” said David Salters, the British-born engineer who heads HRC. “We try them. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t work and you try again. The point of having a racing facility inside your company is you can be agile. You can try stuff. You can train the people.

“The people are the most important thing of all this.”

The whole process is more NASA than NASCAR in that there’s not a speck of grease or oil on the bright, white vinyl flooring and everybody’s hands are clean.

David Salters, president of Honda Racing Corporation.

(Michael L. Levitt / LAT Images via American Honda Motor Co.)

“This is a world-class facility. It needs to be clinical and professional in the processes and systems we have here,” said Salters, who was head of engine development for the Ferrari F1 team and held a similar position at Mercedes-Benz before joining Honda a decade ago.

“It’s like an operating theater. We’re basically dealing with engines or electrical systems, which are like jewelry. They cannot tolerate dirt or anything like that. Everything has to be spotless and clean and well-organized. This is aerospace.”

And when the engines don’t work, they’re brought back to HRC and the engineering process is repeated in reverse in search of flaws. As for why they’re doing all that in a sleepy bedroom community better known for its paved bike paths and rustic hiking trails than for its motorsports history, that’s easy: Location, location, location.

Clarke originally expected to recruit engineers from Indianapolis and Charlotte, N.C., the heartland of American racing, while Honda insisted on keeping its operations near its corporate offices in Torrance. Clarke feared dropping people from the Midwest and South into L.A.’s traffic-clogged sprawl would be such a culture shock, he’d lose his best engineers.

So he chose Santa Clarita, which was isolated enough to not feel like L.A., but close enough to Torrance to be accessible. And the building came with an “Only in L.A.” feature: It shares a driveway with the studio where the popular TV series “NCIS” is filmed.

“Every so often a helicopter will land in the car park and we’re all told we can’t go outside in case we get swept away,” Salters said with a chuckle. “There was some ‘Star Trek’ thing where they decided our foyer could be useful. So for a few weeks we had a movie set in our foyer; we rented it out.

“You’ve got to look at business opportunities.”

Adi Susilo, chief engineer of powertrain at Honda Racing Corporation, looks over large monitors before the start of the 12 Hours of Sebring in March.

(Robert Hanashiro / For the Times)

It’s early on a chilly Saturday in March and HRC’s headquarters is mostly empty save for one corner on the building’s second floor where nearly a dozen people, some wearing headphones, have gathered behind computer screens facing six giant TV monitors.

A continent away, in central Florida, more than 50 cars are lined up for the 12 hours of Sebring. Each driver with a Honda engine has an engineer monitoring their car’s performance.

Before the pandemic, engineers would travel and work with race teams on site. But for the last four years the engineers have been working mostly at HRC, monitoring in-car telemetry that provides real-time information about everything from engine status and tire pressure to suspension behavior.

“Data is king,” said Adi Susilo, one of the HRC engineers. “Humans make mistakes. Data rarely does.”

F1 teams have monitored telemetry remotely for years, but it didn’t become common in IndyCar racing until 2023. Now it’s a vital part of every major racing series, including NASCAR.

Powertrain chief engineer Adi Susilo looks at a full-size mock up of an IMSA prototype at Honda Racing Corporation.

(Robert Hanashiro / For the Times)

Engineers work out of what looks like a college classroom, only quieter. When the sound of a disembodied voice does cackle out of a headphone, it sounds like NASA Mission Control, the tone flat and unemotional, the conversation short and to the point.

“It’s better for solving problems,” said Susilo about working away from the track. “If there’s a problem, you just walk downstairs and talk to the guy who built the engine.”

That won’t be the case Sunday. For the Indy 500, Susilo said it’s all hands on deck, so most of Honda’s race-day engineers are in Indianapolis where the telemetry will be broadcast to their work stations in trailers at the track.

“A few of the IndyCar races are run that way,” he said, “but the 500 is almost always run that way just because everyone’s out here for the event. We’re also testing a new, hopefully more robust, telemetry streaming as it’s much harder to make sure we get 15 car’s worth of data.”

At first, the idea of having engineers looming electronically over the timing stand was a hard sell. Trusting someone with clean fingernails watching the race on monitors thousands of miles away wasn’t easy for some crew chiefs.

“What happens for people like me is that you have to erase the old-school way of thinking,” said Mike Hull, a former mechanic and driver who is now the managing director for Chip Ganassi Racing and chief strategist for driver Scott Dixon, a six-time IndyCar champion. “You’re electronically shoulder to shoulder with them.

“If you don’t listen to what somebody has to say, it stifles free thinking. Free thinking sends you down a path that you may not have originally been on, but makes you stronger at what you’re doing.”

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1. Race engines being assembled at Honda Racing Corporation. 2. A technician in the HRC machine shop works on an engine. 3. Engineers monitor data during the 12 Hours of Sebring in March. 4. A engineer monitors telemetry remotely from HRC headquarters. (Robert Hanashiro / For the Times)

Dixon, the 2008 Indy 500 champion who will start Sunday’s race in the second row, agrees. Which is he why he’s made several trips to HRC to personally thank the engineers who design his engines and those who help direct his races.

“You always feel like there’s a big group behind you,” he said. “You just don’t get to see all them in one place but you know the machine is there, working pretty hard.”

One drawback, Dixon said, is you have to be careful what you say on the radio during races because you never know who’s listening.

“Twenty people at home, just on the team side, will be listening just on that one car,” he said. “So the communication is very wide open. You definitely have to watch your Ps and Qs.”

Two years later race teams have grown so comfortable with people looking over their shoulders, the engineers have become as much a part of the team as the cars. So when a nearby wildfire forced the evacuation of the building, Honda rented rooms at a nearby hotel, set up their TVs, computer monitors and a coffee machine in a conference room and worked from there.

“We’re pretty blind without it. The race teams are pretty competitive,” Susilo said. “They feel that instinct still does work. But it’s more data-driven.”

Honda powertain engineer Jake Marthaler monitors data during the 12 Hours of Sebring in March.

(Robert Hanashiro / For the Times)

Given the investment, the pressure can be intense.

“Every two weeks we want to have the latest development. We want to have made progress,” Salters said. “Every two weeks you have a deadline and the deadline does not move. It’s not like they’re going to say ‘OK, we’ll just delay the race a week.’ The flag drops, you’ve got to be ready.

“It’s sort of an engineering sport isn’t it? It’s like a true sport; the best team will win.”

If the IndyCar-Honda marriage has mostly been good for both sides, it has recently hit a rocky patch.

Honda’s supply contract with IndyCar ends next year and the company hasn’t hid its distaste over the cheating scandals that have recently tarnished the series. Last week Team Penske drivers Josef Newgarden, the two-time defending Indy 500 champion, and Will Power were forced to the back of the field for the start of Sunday’s race after illegally modified parts were found on their cars. Team Penske, which uses Chevrolet engines, was also caught cheating at the beginning of the 2024 season.

On Wednesday, the team fired three of its top racing executives. IndyCar, which is owned by Roger Penske (also the owner of Team Penske) said it is exploring the creation of an independent governing body absent of Penske employees.

Scott Dixon drives into the first turn during practice for the Indianapolis 500 on Friday.

(Michael Conroy / Associated Press)

That may not be enough to restore trust in the series. Honda, which supplies engines to 13 full-season IndyCar entries and three Indy 500-only cars, has declined to comment on the rules violations, but confirmed its continued participation in the series beyond 2026 may depend on Penske’s ability to separate himself from policing the series he owns and also competes in.

Honda said in a written statement Thursday that it has many concerns, among them “the relatively high overall cost to participate as an engine supplier” and “the potential (perceived or real) conflict of interest which may exist” with Penske’s ownership of the racing series, three of the cars competing in the series and his “significant stake” in Ilmor Engineering, which designs and manufactures engines for Chevrolet, Honda’s biggest competitor.

“Honda continues to have ongoing negotiations with IndyCar’s management and technical teams regarding our future as an engine supplier for the series,” said Chuck Chayefsky, manager of Honda & Acura Motorsports.

Whatever road Honda takes with IndyCar, it’s unlikely to change most of the day-to-day work at HRC, which is heavily involved with IMSA and will soon be working on F1 power-unit development.

So while the cars may change, the racing will never stop.

The car Ryan Hunter-Reay drove to victory for Andretti Autosport in the 2014 Indianapolis 500 sits on display at Honda Racing Corporation in Santa Clarita.

(Robert Hanashiro / For the Times)

“Thirty years ago our sole purpose in life was to look after racing in North America for Honda and Acura,” Salters said before last week’s events in Indianapolis. “Last year we changed that. We’re now part of a global racing organization. That’s another opportunity for associates here.”

“The automotive world, it’s pivoting,” he continued. “We are trying some new stuff. We’ll see how it goes.”

One chapter has been written. But the story isn’t finished.

HAVE a guess what engine powers this little Mazda3.

Is it a cheery 1-litre three-pot similar to a Volkswagen Polo?

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A sweet 1.2-litre turbo à la Vauxhall Corsa?

Or even a 1.5-litre hybrid like a Toyota Yaris?

The answer is none of the above.

It is actually a 2.5-litre naturally aspirated petrol.

That’s a B-I-G lump for a little squirt.

Bigger than anything you’ll find in a Kia Sportage or Nissan Qashqai, come to think of it.

The reason being, Mazda has always dared to be different.

It doesn’t do “downsizing”. In other words using a smaller capacity engine and fitting a turbo to it.

It prefers “right-sizing”. Having the correct capacity engine for the job, so it is less stressed and more efficient.

Also, this new engine, combined with 48v mild hybrid tech, produces more torque lower down the rev range than the old 2-litre, improving real-world performance.

Cylinder-deactivation tech shuts down two cylinders under light loads, lowering CO2 and adding a smidge of mpg.

So it’s a really clever engine for a vehicle that’s aged well, drives sweetly and is brimming with big-car kit from £25k.

Slick six-speed manual or auto? I’d go manual. It’s one of the best in the business and an absolute joy to thread down a B-road.

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t the fastest ride at the fairground but it corners tidily, with good body control, and feels solid and safe.

If you need 4WD, try a CX-30.

The cabin is another example of Mazda’s mission to provide the highest quality for the money.

Clarkson once said the Mazda3 is ‘probably the most amazing car on sale in Britain’

Head-up display, Apple CarPlay, Amazon Alexa and a reversing camera all come as standard. We like that.

We also like the skinny, leather-wrapped steering wheel, squishy elbow pads, chunky ­footrest, big cup holders, old-school ­volume and heating controls, and grab handles galore.

It’s almost like they know exactly what people want from a car.

Clarkson once said the Mazda3 is “probably the most amazing car on sale in Britain”.

A pint of Hawkstone Lager says he’ll like the 2025 version even more.

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