Comments on: Did Honda throw a championship away?

By: Bahjat Tabbara

Bahjat Tabbara — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 09:14:47 +0000

Honda F1 may or may not have dominated. Clearly Mercedes power is superior to Honda power, but if the team had not competed at all then Toyota and Williams would have claimed wins. Toyota had a tendency to start strongly only to have a dismal mid-season & occasionally a late season surge. On this occasion wins would have been possible.

I am guessing that Honda would have not been stupid to replace Rubens with Bruno; while also would have had the KERS (which may or may not have added much; but again its use would have depended on performance) thus I believe Honda and Toyota would have dominated the first six races (before other teams hurried hasty double-diffusers), while the rest of the season it would have been fairly close & competitive with their initial edge dropped. Honda-engines also aren’t as reliable as Mercedes, so again that leaves a big question mark.

Ultimately it also boils down to the quality of the drivers. With all due respect to Jarno or Timo; or for that matter Nico & Kazuki, none have the depth of Jenson & Rubens; in fact, on paper both Jenson & Rubens are much better drivers than the other lads. One wonder if Toyota had attracted (say) Kimi or Fellipe, or even Lewis to drive for them.

By: Michael M

Michael M — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 09:36:49 +0000

People don’t seem to be taking into account the lack of continuous development resources at Brawn this year. They started ahead but were caught up by the summer and second fastest car for the second half of the season. With Honda backing they would have been able to continue development throughout the year and maintained any advantage they had. Personally I think they would have been as strong as the McLaren of the late 1990s when Hakkinen was dominant. This car wasn’t built for a Mercedes engine, it was built for the Honda set up. As a result performance was lost in all areas. Yes there may have been more durability issues with the Honda engine over the year but I don’t think they would have made that much of a difference.

Essentially it was a Honda FAIL!

By: Accidental Mick

Accidental Mick — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 10:21:20 +0000

@ Tim

I stand corrected. Thank you – you obviously have a better memory than I.

But I still hold to the point that teams should be given the right to ask for clarification of the rules before race day.

By: Hakki

Hakki — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 03:19:04 +0000

Honda and Toyota are the two most advanced hig-tech car maker in the world. thire technology is far beyond BMW,Renount, even Mercedes not to mention Fiat.

But Honda and Toyota could not succed in F1.
It means modern F1 has nothing to do with car making techinology any more.

Being fast in race trac is valuabule in this environment　age?

Europian people shuld think about the meaning of F1 and motersports. F1′s regulation is less environmental.

By: Hakki

Hakki — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 03:00:17 +0000

From Japanes point of view, Honda’s dicision was correct.
After they pulled out F1, Honda’s image in Japan is improving, because they switch thire promotion cost from F1 to environmental project.
Honda now focus on what is important for Humanbeing’s future. They are not interested in emitting CO2 at track!

The idea that Honda’s withdrawal form F1 was the big mistake was worng, Racing in not so important for ordinaly Japanese people. Honda just choose what people need(environmental techinology)

Honda’s new hybrid car is so popular in Japan now.

By: antonyob

antonyob — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 08:54:11 +0000

I think Honda have been slightly hard done by. Ok the way they operate may not be condusive to winning grand prix’s but they made the decision not to fold the team when there was no buyer and committed to 100 mill of funds despite their name being taken off the car. Thats a big act of philanthropy in anyones book.

Also, lets not forget Hondas engine was as good as there was in F1 in the 80′s so its not that they’ve not got talented engineers it would appear they just cant join everything together as well as German or British run teams.

By: KEV J

KEV J — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 08:34:18 +0000

Simple answer is no, this is a team built from the ashes of Honda, also the honda engine probably would not have been as reliable as the Mercedes engine. This is about a magnificent job done by Brawn, not Honda.

By: Michael K

Michael K — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 07:41:38 +0000

Anyone who has worked with/in a Japanese corporate environment knows that nothing remotely as creative and fast as needed to be successful in F1 can come out of it.
Half of the time the team principals will be occupied with reporting to the mothership and explaining obvious things over and over again. Add to this possible directives from Japan which have to be followed without any consideration to reality.
In order to be successful the Japanese company culture and politics have to be completely removed from the development process and the daily running of the team. When it comes to manufacturing however, this can/should be done in Japan.
Ah yes, I’m in no way a burned child of Japanese corporate culture whatsoever!

By: Aaron

Aaron — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 03:58:04 +0000

forgot to add DD diffusers in design phase according to Whitting and the FIA were illegal…in 09 they became a super clever adaptation of the grey area….

I am not a Mclaren fan but had either they or Renault alone just had this loophole DD on the car it would have been vetoed straight away.

By: Aaron

Aaron — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 03:53:06 +0000

wrong completly…RBR went to Charlie Whiting in 08 and asked (stupidly) if this type of design(loophole) was to be allowed.
Had RBR been allowed to design a whole car around the DD design rather than tack it on afterwards Brawn may not have looked as classy.
And this ‘title’ of being super cunning and smart for thinking of the design and no one else did…what utter rubbish.

RBR should have just built it and then did a ‘brawn’ what illegal?!?!? no (my mate is C Whitting he will take care of it)…oh hang on that was what brawn did and williams did,