Speculation around Honda’s F1 future (Update: Honda to sell team or quit)
Is Honda planning to pull the plug on its F1 team?
Pitpass and GrandPrix.com are questioning the future of Honda’s F1 team and suggesting it could be sold or pulled out of F1.
Is this just speculation during a slow time for Formula 1 or is Honda about to become F1’s first victim of the financial downturn?
Grandprix.com had previously downplayed stories about Honda’s $217m expenditure on F1 last year. It pointed out the reason Honda had spent so much more on F1 than its rival teams was because of its investment in Super Aguri.
Honda ceased supporting Super Aguri earlier this year. Yesterday we learned it had cancelled an expensive media lunch and much-criticised designer Shuhei Nakamoto had left.
Like almost every other car manufacturer on the plant, Honda is suffering the effects of the global financial downturn. Two weeks ago it announced it would close its plant in Swindon for two months next year. Its US sales have fallen by almost a third.
Honda have fallen into a slump since Jenson Button scored the team’s first F1 win at the Hungaroring in 2006. After a disastrous 2007 Nick Fry hired Ross Brawn to turn the team’s fortunes around. Although 2008 has seen little improvement the team is believed to have focussed its efforts on its 2009 car in order to take advantage of next year’s swingeing rules changes. Has that gamble worked against it in the prevailing financial climate?
The loss of another team could reduce the F1 entry to nine teams and 18 cars. That is understood to be below the minimum number of cars F1 is contractually required to bring to each round, raising the possibility of some teams being asked to field three cars.
However it’s impossible to say anything for certain about the Honda’s future or its consequences for F1. I hope the reports are untrue, and I’ll be keeping an eye out for further details. Please post anything else you find below.
Update: Pitpass claims the workforce were told tonight that Honda will not be competing in F1 next year and the team is to be put up for sale.
Grandprix.com reckon they’re waiting for Japan to wake up in a few hours to hear any announcement. I personally wouldn’t be surprised to hear Honda pull the plug - after all, F1 is a slightly unnecessary expenditure when times are rough. That doesn’t mean I condone willy-nilly entering (play during the good times, but don’t in the bad) but it does mean I understand that Honda may have looked at their expenses and decided that after several years of only little success, maybe it is time. Although I always thought Toyota would be the first.
I guess we’ll have to wait and see what comes of this through the night and into tomorrow.
Mmm… two teams with 3 cars? Ferrari, McLaren or Bimmer. Now all of a sudden the crazy spaniards can talk again of Alonso going to Ferrari
Too bad for Honda to pull a Ford.
Problem is that Honda could only be the first.
I always though there was a bit of tension between Honda and Toyota; neither wanting to be the first to throw in the towel.
If Toyota called it a day as well - in a few months time of course - would four teams have to run three cars? And how exactly would Bernie enforce that?
Aah, poor Bruno. He’ll have to actually earn a seat now.
Who could blame Honda if it has decided to pull out? The last two years have been absolutely dire and the whole Super Aguri project can only have been a distraction to the team’s senior management. But Super Aguri was only the latest in a long line of Honda’s mistakes, going back to its days as BAR.
The team has needed real leadership from an experienced F1 person for some time. Now it has Ross Brawn and things should get better. F1 used to be about star designers - Gordon Murray, Adrian Newey, John Barnard, et al - who virtually designed whole F1 cars single handed. Now that F1 teams are so big, it’s much more about having the right people using the right facilities in the right way and bringing it all together seamlessly. McLaren and Ferrari currently do that very very well.
Ross Brawn could be the man to do that for Honda, but it’s an awfully big ask in a relatively short time. Hopefully, Honda’s board will hold off making any decision about the company’s F1 future until the effect of having Brawn becomes clear.
If it can’t wait and pulls out now that’d be a pity - the Japanese company can look back on its previous achievements with a great deal of pride. Leaving F1 at the end of a dismal season will not be the way Honda wants to depart.
Autocar: Honda’s F1 future in doubt
Good job Bernie. You got the BIG motor money but you blew to bits our sport.
first Honda - then Toyota - then Renault - then Mercedes - rock on RedBull and Williams (who know the score) and Ferrari (who have to be there)
….. and just who the hell is gong to want Torro Rosso?
Over the past decade or so they wiped out Jordan, Arrows, Stewart, Minardi, Osella, Benneton and Tyrell….. genius.
SKY NEWS REPORT HONDA PULL OUT OF F1 WITH IMMEDIATE EFFECT
Oh yes beamer….. no chance….. one year then thats that.
Thay Say:
Down to 18 on the grid…a sad situation for the sport to be in on the brink of what looks like such an exciting new era
Well the BBC can always repeat ‘Strictly Come Dancing’
James Allen is reporting Honda pulling out as a certainty, with an announcement tomorrow morning. 18 car grid? And it could even be less? Oh dear.
dear oh dear… credit crunch indeed…
bad news for the sport
James Allen on Honda:
Terrible news but certainly it would be good news as bernie’s company is contracted is it not to supply a minimum of 20 cars for the grid?
That would leave it open for the rest of the manufacturers to opt out and set up a new F1 by another name and wit the old circuits in america/canada etc to tell him and the fia to get lost - sorry living in hope there
All i will say is look at the current headlines of the worst possible outcome for the team and you will not be suprised in a few hours time. Not good news for over 600 people in the current employment market.
Has anyone ever even bought a works team in F1 history? It just doesn’t happen, does it? Manufacturers have taken over private teams, but not each other. And I can’t see a privateer popping up.
Good night sweet prince.
Red Bull took over Jaguar from Ford, and i would imagine due to the loyal traditions of the Japanese people to their workforces a deal would be brokered where the plant would be given away for a nominal pound fee to anyone who could guarantee finance to keep it open for a 3 - 5 year period.
Aparently there are a couple of potential buyers in the pipeline. I read a while back that Adrian Campos was making moves to step his team up from GP2 to F1. Campos-Ferrari next season?
The possibility of three car teams next year is a potential minefield. It seems impossible to imagine that all teams could afford to run three cars… whats the fairest way of deciding which teams do?
Tricky times ahead…
Official confirmation from Reuters and Autosport:
Honda given a month to sell F1 team or close
Honda set to reveal F1 exit plans
Is this an opportunity for Prodrive to act on their interest in having an f1 team? With David Richards former involvement with BAR makes it a plausible option
Whatever happens the axe will fall, anyone stepping up to F1 from another series will take an amount of staff with them and once up to speed redundancies would surely follow for the people that helped teach them the facility, etc
DR has just i think layed off staff with Aston Martin so i doubt it ‘arporter’
Anyone from outside buying it could possibly decide they cannot afford to keep on that many staff and a lot of the most talented staff will already have made arrangements to seek work or be trying to now or be head hunted in the transition period.
All this makes it a pretty uncertain future for a lot of people over a supposedly relaxing part of the year.
If there are a couple of potential buyers in the pipeline, presumably they’d also have shown an interest in STR.
What little interest there has been in STR is by people/groups who want to know what the “customer car” regulations are going to be over the next few seasons. They want to come in and run the team like STR has been - i.e. get a manufacturer to do all the work for you, give you all the bits, and you just do the day-to-day running of their B-team, in effect.
I’m willing to bet there may be a certain amount of interest in Honda for the same reasons, but I’m much less certain there’s anyone who wants to come in and run their own “proper” team.
This sort of thing is only going to add to Mosely’s case for basically spec-series F1.
In all seriousness, I’m actually beginning to think the man was right about those things… Maybe it’s the only way left to save Formula 1, at least untill the economy settles down.
And I continue to think a budget cap would be a good solution for this problem.
According to a member of my family who is an engineering supplier to F1, the word is that Toyota will pull out in January 2009 under similar terms to those set out by Honda. I have no idea how accurate this information is.
What a disaster this all is for the sport.
I guess the financial situation was just the final thing needed to pull the plug. Part of blame could as well be put on all the rumors about the future of F1. Sole engine supplier, the move to Asian venues, no race in North America, the classic tracks in France, the UK, and Germany in doubt… The F1 they joined and saw as a good investment due to prestige and marketing, could very well be gone in 2-3 years time. Why spend a lot of money on a sport when not even the fans really can get a grip on the situation? Better to withdraw, and eventually make a new start later on. But I doubt that any auto manufacturer would want to run a team in a F1 series with standard engines. Then other racing series (like touring car championships) could be more interesting from a marketing perspective. Maybe the new F1 in a few years time is again dominated by small private teams?
HONDA are so funny. They give everyone false hope saying they are going to challenge for wins next year then instead quit F1. I dont get how anyone can be a HONDA fan?
Tommy, you clearly do not understand how major companies work, especially those based in other countries. Monetary decisions to pull out are made at Director level of the main group not operational level of the dependent company for things like this.
If Honda suddenly decides to pull out, the other manufactures could do just the same thing.
Dammit, this is a b***h! Just when Honda had the chance to finally become good again - this happens.
Rubens may be able to get a drive at Toro Rosso (which he probably would have done anyway) but Button and Senna are screwed for this year (and Button maybe forever!)
With this expected announment of immediate retirement - Toyota and Renault may follow later on. This may be a big change for F1 - with big spending manufactures leaving and privateers replacing them cos they can afford it.
….To be honest, I would kind of welcome that….
It’s on the BBC site now as well.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/7766092.stm
Leon @ post 27. Toyota as well? Bernie might be able to miracle one team into staying in F1, but two?
Bernie does own the rights to GP1. I fear (or maybe hope, as Max will be running F1) that this will be the future!
According to some posters on the Autosport boards the minimum number of cars for each race is 16, not 20. I have no idea what the true number is.
diseased rat, that is what the rules say. The contracts, according to reports, stipulate 20 cars.
How many teams will follow?
Neal, are they the FIA rules? Something like “A GP will have a minimum grid of 16 cars, below which points won’t be awarded” or something like that?
The cynic in me wonders if Honda is saving face in the possibility of a third straight F1 car that may well be another dud.
They pinned everything on their 2009 car from very early on this season. If the money was an issue (and bear in mind that Honda is based in an Asian market that isn’t said to be suffering as much as its Western counterparts) then why didn’t they find a sponsor instead of pushing the (now ill-fated) green theme?
If this is true it’s an appalling way for Honda to treat the poor people in Brackley in the run up to Christmas.
My understanding of the regulation are that should a grid reach 16 cars, all eight teams are permitted to run three cars, thus boosting the grid up to 24.
They should be rethinking the customer cars.
This way one manufacter can provide 2 teams (extra income) and the second team has a ‘cheap’ car.
And rearrange the Money pot even better…
Finally they shall have to!
Honda away would be bad, but if toyota goes aswell, that would be disaster
Alex - I wouldn’t say Honda is purely in the Asian market. They are in the world market now and are being affected by N.A. and Europe economic conditions directly. They have plants in these markets which are probably hurting and they have to be accountable to those workers. Not to mention the Asian market is better, but has still be falling over the last few weeks, only not as bad.
always thought the green save our planet pr of Honda was a bit of a joke…now i get it…
Without wanting to get into pedantics and legalese, but “permitted” specifically, or “required”?
I can’t say for definate, but I think it’s obligatory.
muckymuck - I appreciate that the economic crisis is a global one, but equally what is a carbon fibre fabricator thinking while he tells his family that he may only have a few weeks of work left in one of the world’s most cash-rich sports, when Honda have been running a logo free livery for the last two years?
I’ve written a new post to gather together some of my reaction to the news:
How will Honda quitting affect F1?
To Haplo: When Ford announced about the sale of Jaguar Racing in 2004, they had been losing money for 3 years or so. How can you compare Ford and Honda? Honda still is a profitable company, while Ford had not been one in 2004.
Probably the same thing the poor guy at the Honda Swindon factory thats shutting down for 2 months, or the delayed one in India, is thinking as he fears for his job whilst watching his company plough hundreds of millions of dollars into a non-essential sport.
Alex - That’s true enough…I see your point about Honda being logo free and cutting F1 jobs right before Christmas. I still think money is a factor, but maybe optics is even more important. F1 can come off as a luxury to the manufacturer teams in the eyes of the public who see their core business as manufacturing (Only Ferrari treat it as a core component of their business).
It’s partially Honda’s own fault for being self-reliant and not selling ad space on their livery as well as expanding rapidly this year. Now that it’s crunch time, it all backfired on them.
Dang it…I really wanted to see what their new car could do over the next season…
Mav - its not about “Other countries”. Living in what used to be automobile capital of the world, I am close witness to “how major companies in western world work” as well. And to be honest the amount of uncertainity, lack of communication till the boat is just about to capsize is just the same ( refer the crumbling of Big Banks in recent days)
Coming back to Honda Story, apparently Honda Bosses in Japan have finally realised that the British Management under Nick Fry had systematically taken them for ride, by pushing their own agenda ahead and marginalizing the Tokyo backed “Men” in boardroom politics ( One example that comes to mind is Gil-De-Ferran). I think Honda’s announcement is more to this internal Politiking with Nick Fry and his cronies. Not to mention for carte blanche that Tokyo bosses gave him Nick couldn’t deliver anything worth mentioning in last three years other than the chance win in rain affected Hungary’06.
Relation between Nick Fry and Honda bosses must be like of Fund Manager and Investor in Sinking markets, The Investor finally has lost confidence in Fund Manager’s capability to give them returns.
As much as I would feel bad about Leaving of another team. I always felt it was just matter of time that this was to happen. I wonder, why Nick and Brawn made it known to their FOTA counterparts
Is it another last ditch attempt to get some personal benefits by making FOTA bosses make some choices under Duress 