Honda F1 For Sale / Pull Out?

Just tuned in. Oh my god, 100,000 GBP of batteries trashed after each race. Seriously, they should tack that on to their Go Green campaign, along with putting green stripes on tires. I caught enough to fathom that none of the big-big-dollar teams are going to be able to survive in Bernie's F1 anymore.

No wonder Honda F1 is bailing out; F1 as we know it is going down the drain.
 
I'm sure they do numerous cost-benefit-analysis throughout the year, and considering they are out spending every other team, what is the benefit in being the back marker and in all honesty the laughing stock of the paddock the past 2 seasons.

My guess is that this will be the opening salvo to Berni and Max to force ahead the much needed, and demanded cost cutting measures almost everyone associated in the sport has called for, save maybe Ferrari. This could lead to a huge sea change in F1.

Honda's departure could easily tempt others such as rival Toyota to leave, and no one ever thought Renault was in it for the long haul either. With car sales for everyone down at least 25% in the 2 months when compared to last year, the manufactures may not be too keen on spending $300USD million for what is basically marketing.

Plus Honda has always been fickle about racing in F1...
James Allen of ITV-F1.com said:
Honda has its car factories in Japan working part-time shifts, owing to the collapse in the automobile sales market and clearly the management feel that they can no longer justify spending up to ?200 million a year on F1, even if cost-cutting measures are in the pipeline...

The Japanese firm recently cut its road car production in both Japan and Europe, including a 50-day shutdown at its Swindon plant early next year, and its US sales last month fell 32%...

Speculation in recent days suggested it was now turning its cost-cutting attention to its F1 project, although a complete exit from the sport was not an anticipated move...

The Financial Times newspaper recently wrote that [Honda] was the highest spending of the F1 outfits and had got through ?147 million in 2007, about ?40 million more than McLaren...

Honda has a track record of sudden withdrawals, pulling out of Williams in 1987 to switch to McLaren and then withdrawing from F1 altogether in 1992... itv-f1.com

Spending $80USD million more in 2007 than McLaren, where there were the permanent back marker, easily the worst team in F1 that year, is no way to run a racing program. And they can't use Toyota's excuse of Germany's labor laws for their spending practices.

Now I just wonder what this will do to the NSX replacement...
 
I honestly dont care that Honda might be leaving. I'm with Necx0 and agree that F1 is heading for a major shake-up and once the dust settles, I doubt teams like Honda, Toyota or Renault will be around, which will allow F1 more of a chance to get back to basics. It'll happen inside five years.

I feel for the workforce. I doubt Honda will find a buyer and it means that a good 600 people will be jobless, at a really bad time...
 
Spending $80USD million more in 2007 than McLaren, where there were the permanent back marker, easily the worst team in F1 that year, is no way to run a racing program. And they can't use Toyota's excuse of Germany's labor laws for their spending practices.

Now I just wonder what this will do to the NSX replacement...

Formula 1 budgets are not very common knowledge. I've heard numbers ranging from 24 million per year to 750 million per year.

As far as I'm concerned unless it comes from the horse's mouth it's pure speculation.
 
NO! Oh my god...This is huge...

Why so suddenly? And more importantly, who's gonna buy them?
 
Honda gone, Hockenheim says "Fick dich Bernie", Nuerburgring almost bancrupt, no race in USA or Canada...

Way to go Bernie!

I am looking forward to the F1 in Africa or Siberia.......
 
Not sure Toyota will be so fast to follow Honda, it's in a slightly better position to weather the storm than Honda was. Plus they made some progress this year after a dismal season before.

Looks like Cosworth might have their first customers: http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/72324

the offer is there but I can't see anyone taking it...

Force India has signed a deal with Merc...
Red Bull and Toro Rosso seems to have a steady supply...
if "Honda" survives (and hope they'll change their name to Brawn Power... NOT~ lol), reports are they can get the Ferrari engines...
Williams and Toyota seems to have an OK relationship for now...

so even if anything happened between Williams and Toyota, and "Honda" doesn't use the Ferrari engine, they would still need the Red Bulls to make up the numbers for that Cosworth engine...

and would the Cosworth engine be competitive (or lets make that... reliable)~?
 
I can see a much more interesting proposition for the Honda team: Create a Ferrari B team. The team has Ross Brawn so obviously the links to Ferrari are good. Ferrari will get good help with KERS development with which they are rumoured to be lagging behind, a technical partner which will give them extra technical data and a way to share expenses in development. The new team will get Ferrari engines that are among the best in the field as proved by Toro Rosso this year, plenty of technical support and on top of that the status of Ferrari B team which is going to be a much better proposition to potential partners than a team based on the remains of Honda which was among the backmarkers for the last two years.
 
and would the Cosworth engine be competitive (or lets make that... reliable)~?

I think Max said quite directly that they are going to make it competitive. And since Max is the FIA I would be extremely surprised if that does not mean rule breaks for Cosworth to get there. Which is why I consider that plan really problematic, but since this topic is not about that I won't go into that.
 
I can see a much more interesting proposition for the Honda team: Create a Ferrari B team. The team has Ross Brawn so obviously the links to Ferrari are good. Ferrari will get good help with KERS development with which they are rumoured to be lagging behind, a technical partner which will give them extra technical data and a way to share expenses in development. The new team will get Ferrari engines that are among the best in the field as proved by Toro Rosso this year, plenty of technical support and on top of that the status of Ferrari B team which is going to be a much better proposition to potential partners than a team based on the remains of Honda which was among the backmarkers for the last two years.

I think Ferrari would be quite agreeable to a B team. McLaren have allied with Force India, not out of charity, but they've identified a means of effectively doubling their testing mileage and research power through Mallya's team, and the benefits will be huge I'm quite sure. It'd be foolish indeed of Ferrari to blindly reject any B team proposition, which is why if I was the new owner, first thing I'd be doing is calling Maranello.
 
Fry: Three interested buyers already
Friday 5th December 2008

Honda F1 boss Nick Fry has claimed that the team has already been approached by three prospective buyers following the announcement that Honda have decided to withdraw from the sport with immediate effect.

No sooner had Honda's Japanese president Takeo Fukui confirmed that the team was pulling out of the sport than Fry hit the airwaves to announce that he was confident the team could be saved despite the worldwide economic slowdown.

"We've only had twelve hours since the news but already we have had three serious people come forward and say they are interested in buying us," Fry told BBC Radio Five Live.

"We will be quite a desirable asset for somebody. For the moment, it's business as usual and we still hope to be on the grid in Melbourne."

I know who they are ;)

Paul Stoddart, David Richards, and Aguri Suzuki.

Can I just ask that whichever concern does buy the team (if they do), that they get rid of Mr Smiley? Kthxbye.
 
I'd love to see Aguri come back!
 
I'd love to know how you go about getting the word out that you want to buy the team.

"Hello, Honda Customer Support, how may I direct your call?"
"Yes, I'd like to buy your Formula 1 team."
 
I know who they are ;)

Paul Stoddart, David Richards, and Aguri Suzuki.

Can I just ask that whichever concern does buy the team (if they do), that they get rid of Mr Smiley? Kthxbye.

I was just thinking about this on the way home! And whoever of these three would buy the team, they would kick out Nick "Incompetent" Fry.
 
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