It is rare in modern day Formula One for a new entrant to enter the series without buying an existing team.
With the blessing of manufacturing giant Honda, Super Aguri joined Formula One for the 2006 season and fronted by former Zakspeed, Larrousse and Footwork racer Aguri Suzuki with Daniele Audetto taking the Managing Director position.
The team's debut season was based around a revamped Bridgestone-shod, Honda-powered Arrows A23 chassis purchased from former Minardi owner Paul Stoddart and adapted to the 2006 regulations and re-branded the SA05. The team brought out a heavily modified design mid-season which was known as the SA06 despite the fact it was still the original Arrows chassis from 2002.
Takuma Sato joined the team from Honda and after a troubled season in 2005, put in a great year for the new Super Aguri Honda team. Sato's confidence in the team and his own driving improved throughout the year culminating in a super drive at the season finale in Brazil in which he would take the chequered flag in tenth position, the team's best result of the year.
In contrast to Sato, rookie driver Yuji Ide was out of his depth and the FIA stripped the Japanese driver of his Super Licence. Former Renault test driver Franck Montagny took over the seat for seven races mid-season before Sakon Yamamoto was drafted in for final seven races of the season. Having survived and made progress in its debut season, Takuma Sato will remained with the squad in 2007 and was joined by long-time Honda test driver Anthony Davidson.
It would prove to be a solid season for the team running a revised version of last year's Honda RA106, dubbed the SA07, the team scored four championship points. While the points tally is important, the team were also able to run with, and on occasion, out-pace more fancied mid-field runners.
However, primary sponsor SS United Oil defaulted on payments mid-season and with a sudden downturn in revenues, the team had little option but to drastically cut back on development and testing. None of this helped the team in the second half of the season.
The team were determined to make the grid in Melbourne and retained both Sato and Davidson for the 2008 season. However a proposed take-over by Magma Group fell though and the team announced its withdrawal and closure from the sport ahead of the fifth round of the championship in Turkey.