MONTEREY, Calif. – From 2012 to 2017, despite Honda’s best efforts, it could not win the INDYCAR Manufacturers Cup as its rivals at Chevrolet enjoyed an impressive run.

That streak ended in 2018 when Honda won the Manufacturers Cup for the first time since 2011, and the first since Chevrolet returned to the series as a manufacturer in 2012.

Colton Herta’s victory in Sunday’s Firestone Grand Prix of Monterey clinched Honda’s second-straight INDYCAR Manufacturers Championship and the first since Ted Klaus because President of Honda Performance Development in April.

“Every year we come into the season and the Manufacturers Championship is there for the taking,” Klaus told NTT INDYCAR Mobile. “To defend, to win back-to-back, is a huge accomplishment.”

That is especially true in a year when Chevrolet-backed Team Penske won both the 103rd Indianapolis 500 and Josef Newgarden won the NTT IndyCar Series championship.

“It just shows the strength, top to bottom, of our partners and our associates and how they just keep improving,” said Klaus, who is pictured above with INDYCAR President Jay Frye (left). “We won the Manufacturers Championship, but there is some unfinished business to take care of for next year.”

Translated, that means a return to victory lane at the Indianapolis 500 and a driver’s championship for Honda in 2020.

“Winning cultures are built step-by-step and year-by-year,” Klaus said. “It’s all about the associates and our people.

“I go into work every Monday morning and I look at the eyeballs of our people who are designing, developing and creating this Honda power. Those are our homegrown associates that make it happen

“I’m excited, focused forward and challenging everybody to go into the offseason so we can win this again next year and go win the Indy 500.”

After experiencing a drought in the first half of this decade, Honda is closing out the 20-teens with some impressive accomplishments in INDYCAR.

“Two in a row is extremely gratifying,” Klaus said. “We all know that everything you do in life tends to be incremental, and so I had the pleasure of joining and stepping up on top of what my predecessors have built before me, including the most recent president, Art St. Cyr. I'm just really pleased to have earned this second championship. It was very tight, so it's very gratifying.

“You see the skill of a Scott Dixon or the skill of an Alexander Rossi, and then you see the emerging skill, and you can't harness the rookies that really our partner teams go and excavate this talent, and they support it. A lot of them are supporting it in the lower series.

“I’m just very, very humbled and proud to be working in partnership with our teams and to support the young next generation stars, not just drivers but really stars who can inspire even younger kids.”