Honda should feel ashamed to its core.

[johnnymo]

Actually, disgraced is the proper Japanese term.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/79613

And we should add, now that BrawnGP, with the chassis that the Honda F1 Team designed and built last year, has won both driver's and constructor's world championships, Ito can add catastrophically poor timing, lack of staying power, and dim vision to his corporate resume.

John

 

[e.pie]

can we add all of their cars turning into oversized blandmobiles?


IMO the most interesting car honda sells right now is the fit, and that's kind of sad

 

[MAJOR STONER]

The greatest car Honda ever built, the BS-promotype Nurburgring-wunderkind V10-ASC is on display where?

Would you like your next 300 HP ultra-fem inferiorly-repackaged bloated-to-numbness chassis with 0,2,5, or 10 grand worth of technology?

Anyone come across a genuine NSX-R GT, yet?

Chevy is calling out Honda in it's latest ads, so much for their technology sharing agreement with GM.

Okay, I'm done.

 

[jond]

Chevy is calling out Honda in it's latest ads...

GM, as a company, should be embarrassed to be seen in public. I can't understand where they have the balls to call anyone out. Maybe when they get off of government assistance they can start opening their mouth.

To Hondas defense, they prepared their company at a time when several economists were talking about a second great depression. They had no way of knowing governments around the world would print trillions to push the problem down the road.

I agree though, bad timing to sell your F1 team right before it wins. lol.

 

[Miner]

Honda should be ashamed they didn't succeed in F1. They left the sport after last year.

Miner

 

[swerve2007]

just like the 80's- honda quits 'on top', unplanned this time, lol.

 

[Dr.Honda]

Personally, I don't think Brawn would have succeeded w/ Honda motors. Lets face it, they were unreliable in the late days of BAR (remember how many Sato grenaded?) and under-powered in the factory (Earth-Dreams) Honda cars. Ross was smart to source is motors through Mercedes. He was also smart to keep the personnel he did from the Honda team. I question the decision to let Rubens go, but that's another issue...
It's not that Honda can't make racing motors, look at the IRL, when is the last time you saw an engine failure there?
Guess F1 just takes too much $$ that they'd rather spend on SUV's that do everything but wipe your a$$ for you....sad.:frown:

 

[sadlerau]

Nope, politics and reality got Honda out of F1.

When the rules stated that the motor as raced at Suzuka in 2007 was to be the FINAL design permitted to race in 2008, the Honda motor was the most powerful on the grid, saddled with the worst chassis on the grid.

This was politically unacceptable to the big teams of F1, so some teams were allowed to modify their motors for, ahem "reliability" purposes. Ferrari and Mercedes motors promptly started popping seams and failing to finish! So much for reliability!

Yes the Honda motor lacked power and driveability by the end of the 2008 season, BUT Honda would have been allowed to "improve" their motor, just as Renault were allowed to for this year. Would it have been as good as the Mercedes motor? Probably not, but then it was not being monitored by an ECU that is supplied to the whole grid by an associated company [as the Mercedes is].

Reality check #1 - Was it viable for Honda to spend how many millions of dollars to up-grade their F1 motor for one last hurrah?? In retrospect, the obvious answer [especially from a marketing perspective] is obviously - YES. What price hindsight :frown: But to the oh so proper suits at Honda HQ without the benefit of hindsight, well we know the answer

Reality check #2 - Honda wanted a Japanese Honda F1 racing team, with all that implied about home grown Japanese engineers, team leaders and managers. What they got was Fry and Brawn The less said about Fry, the better, but with Brawn they got the real thing, but Japanese he was not! Nakamoto was Japanese , and his legacy, rightfully or wrongly is the RA 107 and 108 debacle!!!! Brawn would give them a chassis worthy of Honda, but not a worthy Japanese chassis [even though there was significant input from Honda Japan!]

Reality check #3 - GFC

The result? Eternal anguish at what might have been for all Honda F1 enthusiasts. It is enough to make me take up drinking. Oh wait, I already do that to excess :biggrin:

 

[Energy1]

"GM, as a company, should be embarrassed to be seen in public. I can't understand where they have the balls to call anyone out."
As a US taxpayer, we and you own GM.....

 

[johnnymo]

Reality check #2 - Honda wanted a Japanese Honda F1 racing team, with all that implied about home grown Japanese engineers, team leaders and managers. What they got was Fry and Brawn The less said about Fry, the better, but with Brawn they got the real thing, but Japanese he was not! Nakamoto was Japanese , and his legacy, rightfully or wrongly is the RA 107 and 108 debacle!!!! Brawn would give them a chassis worthy of Honda, but not a worthy Japanese chassis [even though there was significant input from Honda Japan!]

Don't beat up Nick Fry too much. He himself admits he was never the type to run a team - that's why he talked Ross into doing it. In an interview a few days ago, Ross credited Fry for keeping him going when they thought it was all over last winter.

I think Honda was aware they needed help in chassis design, and pursued the right man for the job. A japanese chassis was not going to be a winner, as they came to understand. After all, all their previous championships were with english cars, and I think that reality eventually hit home.

But to finally get the right team, spend 1.5 years designing a magnificent car that had what it took, and then bail out? The FIA was going to let them do what Renault did...update their motors to get up to Ferrari/Mercedes levels, so no excuse on the motor side either. They made a bad call, and deserve every bit of criticism.

 

[MAJOR STONER]

The Sun.uk site is down, but they were reporting that Virgin pulled it's backing, as BrawnGP has gone from underdog to become the most expensive team in the paddock.

 

[johnnymo]

The report of this being the last season with Virgin has been around since mid season. Virgin wanted to go after one of the new teams once they got all this dirt cheap exposure; it doesn't surprise me that Branson is a successful a businessman as he is - he did very, very well with all the exposure he got this year for a reported song.

This is an excellent read if you want to know how STUPID Honda was, from a Brawn engineer, on the inside:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2009/10/the_remarkable_story_of_brawn.html

 

[enigma]

The report of this being the last season with Virgin has been around since mid season. Virgin wanted to go after one of the new teams once they got all this dirt cheap exposure; it doesn't surprise me that Branson is a successful a businessman as he is - he did very, very well with all the exposure he got this year for a reported song.

This is an excellent read if you want to know how STUPID Honda was, from a Brawn engineer, on the inside:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2009/10/the_remarkable_story_of_brawn.html

Super interesting article. Pretty interesting to hear from the inside how, essentially, if the Brawn used the Honda engine like it was supposed to, the car likely would've been even quicker.

Safe to say someone at Honda fell on a sword for this one.

 

[Ponyboy]

Don't beat up Nick Fry too much. He himself admits he was never the type to run a team - that's why he talked Ross into doing it. In an interview a few days ago, Ross credited Fry for keeping him going when they thought it was all over last winter.

Definitely not a big Nick Fry fan. However, he does know his place now. If Ross is as Sochiro Honda then Fry is as Takeo Fujisawa.

explaination: Honda worked on the engineering side and gave responsibility to Fujisawa to actually run Honda, the company.