Super Aguri F1 Team - Fan BBS

billylui2308 · Posted: Thu Dec 04, 2008 4:24 pm Post subject: honda F1 pulling out

WTF? I know there's a credit crunch and underproforming, a bit shocked that they have 3 months to go. i thought they're getting ready to win races.

I'm shocked Shocked

Mark Talbot · Moderator Joined: 06 Apr 2006 Posts: 1141 Location: London

The annoying thing is that it puts another three drivers onto the market, just when Taku's position was looking hopeful.

The saddest thing is 600+ people being told about this just before Christmas.

The maddening thing is Fry still bad-mouthing SAF1 !!! Evil or Very Mad

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roko · Super Member Joined: 13 Feb 2008 Posts: 169

Saward reports that loads of Honda's personnel made contact to various teams along the grid.

hrvoje zecevic · Posted: Thu Dec 04, 2008 7:43 pm Post subject:

I am shocked Shocked

and I can't express my thoughts on english, fluently, right now
Sad

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Anpanman · Posted: Thu Dec 04, 2008 8:13 pm Post subject:

Good write up on the front page Mark... It will be sad to see F1 without Honda, but I can't make sense of almost anything they have done in the past couple of years so it doesn't surprise me.

Bad management, uninspiring drivers...

They should have invested more in Super Aguri, that was better PR for them especially in Japan.

I am also a bit worried about the extra drivers on the market now.... Confused

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Pierre-Patrick · Posted: Fri Dec 05, 2008 12:20 am Post subject:

Ouch
I just read the news, on a Belgian site, ran here to announce it, looks like I'm a bit late hehe

I'm truly shock! I hadn't seen it coming!
Maybe all the changes in the regulations were a bit too much for Honda.
In someway, I can understand them, how can they focus getting a competitive car again, while the rules are changing years after years (and not always for the good).
I guess when you are a strong team, it's just adapting the car....

I read it was 760 employees to go on the banch...

Really sad news!
Hopefully it won't affect Taku's career! (and hopefully it'll be the opposite, Honda might give Taku more money Wink

)

hrvoje zecevic · Posted: Fri Dec 05, 2008 5:54 am Post subject:

disaster...but also just a 'extension' of brillliant honda F1 policy in last few years...
and I was hoping that 2009. will be the year of honda's comeback...
I hope that honda F 1 will find new owner, and that people willl not loose their job, or will find new ones easily...
and afterall: thank you honda for supporting taku for the most part of his racing carreer.
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DIP, Zeko

James BE ON EDGE · Posted: Fri Dec 05, 2008 6:08 am Post subject:

sweet justice and good riddance! to fry and his cronies of course, not to the good people that work in the team.

just goes to show that karma works both ways. finally we see brackley crashing and burning after what they've done to us, didn't take too long at all did it?

revenge is very sweet indeed. i feel much much better reading this in the press.
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hrvoje zecevic · Posted: Fri Dec 05, 2008 6:30 am Post subject:

but, on the bright side, no more green trousers Twisted Evil

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billylui2308 · Posted: Fri Dec 05, 2008 10:09 am Post subject:

Despite what Honda had done to SA, I was shocked to hear the annoucement. Because I personally believe they have a 09 car that is capable of doing great things, I guess we won't be able to see it.

The sad thing is that Honda has racing in its DNA, the withdrawn is like taking one of ur hand away, they still have other racing projects though.

I just hope that the employees of Honda will be able to find employment elsewhere, sad news indeed. But they did have a couple of bad years, I hope that someone will come in and buy the team but it will be costly.

V1nce · Super Member Joined: 07 Dec 2006 Posts: 234

Of course Honda withdrawing from Formula 1 creates a massive problem for the UK motorsports fan….

With Button out of a drive, and likely to stay that way even if Richards buys the team according to some sources, Lewis Hamilton will be the only British driver which can only mean 100% saturation of Lewis butt licking in the British press!!! No more press reports that read…

“Jenson Button. Remember that guy? Yer the guy that fluked that win in Hungary. The 1 we made you believe was actual capable of becoming a world champion even thou that smooth style we banged on about masks floors in the chassis design. Yer, that one. Needs a shave. Well he qualified 18th. 2 rows behind Ruben his team mate.”

And for this I’d like to shake my fist at Nick Fry.

While on the subject of the Fry bloke… WHAT THE HELL HAS HE BEEN DOING? How the hell can you take a team from a solid 3rd manufacture and flukey race winner (yes I know they were cheating then) to having your arse handed to you by your hand-me-down chassis and battling Force India in 3 years? And then pick up a reported 500K pa pay cheque for doing this? He’s ****** lucky that the Japanese back their teams and it players and don’t like admitting defeat. I seriously think questions would have been asked if these events had played out in a European backed team.

I can blame the manager for everything, after all I’m not a football fan. The fact Honda choose to pursue that ****** stupid MY EARTH DREAM theme for the last 2 season with little or no pay back must have put a strain on there pockets with practically no sponsorship cash follow coming into the team. VAG and Peugeot have used Motor sport to convince the world that they build the worlds best diesels. Do we all think of Honda as Green car manufacture? How many hybrids did Honda sell off the back of the F1 program? Is F1 the right place to promote your green ideals??? Answers NO, probably Zero and HAHA.

The most ironic thing is my final memory of the Honda in F1… Jenson’s car burning in the pit lane after the Brazilian GP.

Hey Ho here’s to the future….

Will there be a future? The problem is, and as David Richards has already pointed out, the FIA are planning massive cost cuts and if you buy Honda how will that fit in with those ideals? Mark and myself visited the factory last year… the site is ****** massive. It’s a self serving industrial park! The ****** place even has street names! Think of the over heads! With F1 heading the direction it looks to be you’d be better buying Leafield!

Having said this, you’re buying a turn key operation. The team is there, the drivers are there, the chassis is there and more importantly there this supposed Ferrari engine Ross Brawn has pulled in on a favour (I’ll come back to that). This will suit someone like Richards as this is similar the planned deal he had with McLaren, which Force India have now nicked. He could also use a few of the sheds down there to knock out a few Aston Le Mans prototypes if he wanted to.

Arr. Erm. Oops. I’ve just highlighted the floor in the Richards buy out plan… Can he be seen to be playing with racing cars when he’s laying off 1000 people at Aston Martin?

This brings me back to Ross Brawn and he’s favours. What sort of favours is he owed when he can call a customer engine deal from Ferrari? Ferrari replaced Massa with Schumacher at key times last season? Or a better question is what doors can he open for Todt and Sons (read ART). Effectively Honda would become the Ferrari B team only with all the good Ferrari staff.

Mark Talbot · Moderator Joined: 06 Apr 2006 Posts: 1141 Location: London

Great post V1ince, thanks ... the insight to Dave R's dilema is not lost on someone going through the same process themself (I was told last Friday to find a new job).

Money for sport in this economic climate is always going to sit very sour with those paying redundancy cheques elsewhere.

I know there are many hundreds of people (not just at HF1, but at their suppliers too) who will be losing jobs - one of them is a friend and fellow Taku fan - but the £/person cost in F1 compared to the £/person cost in a car factory is radically different.

I just hope that the cost saving don't end up giving us funny shaped touring cars. Same engine, same tyres, aero restrictions, it would mean virtually no development from Australia to Brazil - great if you are at the front in Oz ... but if that's the future, we only need watch the first race of each season.

What's the answer?

Ironically, perhaps less is more? Fewer restrictions might mean less spent gaining a tenth of a second, and more innovation providing a second or two. Look back at skirts, turbo, six wheels, suction, etc.

Maybe a more open formula would lead to a more exciting season?
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V1nce · Super Member Joined: 07 Dec 2006 Posts: 234

Add to the list of things Honda have... £60million of sponsorship from Petrobras which means a Brazilian will be driving. Which is pretty amazing considering they couldn’t be arsed to find a sponsor a week ago.

V1nce · Super Member Joined: 07 Dec 2006 Posts: 234

So there’s been a massive Japanese public backlash towards Honda for their handling of the situation. Again.

So will Honda hastily be preparing a B team to place Honda into next season?

maninwhitecoat · Posted: Mon Dec 15, 2008 4:51 pm Post subject:

Honda's reason to pull out of F1 is purely for business sense. The team has been given a budget from which they can (not must) put together three competitive cars for the test Melbourne race. After that is dependent on the buyer, should one exist...

If the team gets a buyer, then they also get a highly skilled work force with a state of the art operations centre as Vince has mentioned. But with all the new stupid rules coming in, limited testing, standard parts etc, it makes a lot of the facilities that Honda have invested redundant.

I really don't know what they're playing at at the FIA. They've had the teams invest millions into developing and innovating things like KERS and now we'll just go for a standard part shall we? Absolutely short sighted.

And with all these supposedly cost cutting measures, it actually costs the teams a lot more to reshape and restructure the running of the operations, including redundancy packages etc to suit the new rules than these cost cutting measures do for the team. Oh and we'll just change the rules in a year. Nothing short of ridiculous.

They're removing what F1 used to be about, ingenuity and innovation.