23 replies to this topic

[taran]

Now that Honda’s F1 effort has collapsed, it is a good moment to analyze why they failed.
Most forum members are both passionate and knowledgeable so it might be interesting to see if we share the same views on Honda’s failure.

My views:
I think there are basically 4 reasons:

1. Honda badly underestimated the challenge of contemporary F1. During its heyday in the late 1980s and early 1990s it faced underfunded competition such as Renault, Ford, BMW and Ferrari. These were ‘traditional’ racing programs by manufacturers doing F1 on a strict budget. Meanwhile Honda threw money and engineers at their F1 program. While Renault and Ford would build maybe 40 engines in a year, Honda would build 200. No effort was too much. There were test teams in Europe and Japan and satellite data uplinks to transfer the testing data. Honda just operated on an entirely different level. After Mercedes joined F1 however, the game moved on as Mercedes also brought in the same corporate "spend what you need' mentality and the other companies generally responded in kind. By 2000, all manufacturers were operating with almost unlimited resources so Honda could no longer simply ‘buy’ success.
2. Previously, Honda allied with Williams and McLaren. Both were top teams and could make good use of the Honda engines. A good engine is not enough, it must also be coupled to a good team to really shine. Examples are Lotus-Honda and Ligier-Renault; good engine, 'bad' team = not the same results as the good engine, good team. BAR simply wasn’t a good team, certainly not in the same league as the other top teams of the past decade like Ferrari, McLaren and Renault.
3. Geoff Willis wasn’t a good enough. I rate him as exceedingly average. Even Williams wasn’t willing to fight for him when BAR approached him. Willis’ cars were adequate but never cutting edge IMO. No spark of genius there. When Barrichello appeared, the team was allegedly amazed at what advanced tech Ferrari had developed over the years, stuff Honda didn't have. I wouldn't be surprised if that didn't convince Honda to get rid of him and later sign Brawn. Sure, Honda nosedived without him but they would have been average with him. At least they tried a different tack.
4. Nick Fry simply hasn’t got the right stuff to be a team principle. Under Craig Pollock, the team was a joke, all glitter and no substance. Dave Richards had vision and the Alpha personality to whip the team into shape and could have dragged the team to the sharp end of the grid (or not, Richards’ F1 resume is also suspect). Fry however is a corporate yes man, as his previous career shows. He does what he is told (and is likely quite good at that) but leading a F1 team requires considerably more than that. Without strong leadership, no F1 team can succeed and BAR/Honda lacked both a strong company leader and a strong technical leader for much of its existence.

[Atreiu]

I guess switching to V8 engines was just too much for them. :

[Risil]

Originally posted by Atreiu
I guess switching to V8 engines was just too much for them. :

2006 was a moderately successful season, certainly compared to the next though. Button got stronger over the year, so presumably there wasn't anything wrong with car development and technical resources at that point. It's simply unfair and dishonest to claim that the team was 'rotten' from the start, or doomed to failure -- this is the same operation that came second in 2004, and won a race at Hungary in '06. Even if Alonso broke down, being the second fastest car on the track isn't really a sign of 'everything going wrong'.

Whatever happened to make Honda the worst team on the grid, it was during the design of the 2007 package. Miscalibrated windtunnels and engine freezes (there are some lurid figures for Honda's bhp deficit to the likes of Ferrari) will almost certainly come into it.

[bogi]

Departure of Simon Lacey;

http://www.mclaren.c...simon-lacey.php

Mclaren started to make much more better cars, Honda fall back.

[primer]

Originally posted by Atreiu
I guess switching to V8 engines was just too much for them. :

Heheh if the engine's were I4 or V6 I doubt they would have done any better.

My theory is that the quality of employees in their design and manufacturing facility in UK was poor. There is no doubt that it was the chassis and not the engine that really sucked, if you read the comments Rubens has made in past.

Cannot really blame or comment on the racetrack side of operations since they didn't get a competetive car to play with.

I would not blame the management. They gave a lot of freedom which is evident in statements from Fry now that the HQ has decided to suspend F1 efforts. If anything, I would blame them for being too hands off. They should moved a lot more of the operations to Japan. And if Honda rotated the staff as in past, that would have been a big mistake. Now a days you need specialists with years of domain specific experience.

F1 is so competetive that not much has to go wrong for you to find yourself at the back of the grid.

One often overlooked reason why Honda sucked in 2008: my curse!
I disliked their "my green earth" **** so much I prayed for the team to underperform and disintegrate. Sometimes the devil listens and grants your wishes.;)

[BlackCat]

obviously that green livery was not just an ugly and hypocritical trick, but was based on some deeper and stupider idea - like NOT keeping white livery with a red ring somewhere on it and milking Lucky Strike money forever like a certain red team has done. and keeping two pointless drivers, also a pointless test driver, did not make things better. even Force India had a bit better driver pairing: at least Sutil has some perspective.

[Rob]

Originally posted by BlackCat
even Force India had a bit better driver pairing: at least Sutil has some perspective.

I disagree. The driver lineup was the bit that was fine. Over the last two years, the cars have been absolute donkeys and they should have stuck to giving the sponsors exposure, not going with the ridiculous eco-warrior theme.

[V8 Fireworks]

Usually F1 needs a sum of incremental improvements to the car. Ferrari can afford for some aero parts to work less good for example, as their aerodynamic base is at a higher level over many years. Same with set-up etc, their base set-ups are better, and if they are sliding or understeering badly they may still be quick as their car is inherently faster etc.

Honda had good developments from 03-06 and were regular point finishers.

Then they decided to make an all new car, which was somehow going to make them much more competitive. New suspension design, new aerodynamics layout... a car, seemingly, built WITHOUT retaining the good bits of the previous design as Ferrari, Renault, McLaren etc do.

With an incorrectly callibrated wind tunnel yet new aero layout, suspension analysis seeminly lacking compared to earlier development yet new tyre to sort out, and an engine freeze where mega-teams such as Honda & Toyota did not use the loopholes like that other mega-teams operating outside the spirit of the regulations such as Ferrari did, made for poor performance.

Even on non-suited Bridegstones the 06 model being an inherently faster car was still often faster in Super Aguri spec than the Bridgestone-specific Honda.

[MichaelPM]

They where useless at running an F1 team.

[Paolo]

I have read several times that the atmosphere inside the team was not good; a lot of backstabbing going on, and good people running away while the "politicians" stayed.

That could explain nearly all.

[howardt]

Try to view the full duration of this Honda F1 era, not just 2008. They had arguably the 2nd best car in 2004, but couldn't beat the Ferrari which was a world apart from the rest of the field that year. They were competetive in 2006, and won a race. I genuinely beleive their positive noises that they were coming back strongly for 2009.

Personally I have exactly the *opposite* view to primer. I think that the team were united motivated and skilled, but were rudderless because of an incompetent management team. The politics & decion-making at the top of the F1 division were appalling. Whoever had the "earth-dream" idea should have been sent to bed with no supper, but instead it made it to the car. With Mr Brawn on board it looked like they were starting to get onto the right track for 2009 (there was no development of the 08 car so he had almost no influence on competetiveness this year).

[MichaelPM]

Originally posted by howardt
Try to view the full duration of this Honda F1 era, not just 2008. They had arguably the 2nd best car in 2004, but couldn't beat the Ferrari which was a world apart from the rest of the field that year. They were competetive in 2006, and won a race. I genuinely beleive their positive noises that they were coming back strongly for 2009.

Personally I have exactly the *opposite* view to primer. I think that the team were united motivated and skilled, but were rudderless because of an incompetent management team. The politics & decion-making at the top of the F1 division were appalling. Whoever had the "earth-dream" idea should have been sent to bed with no supper, but instead it made it to the car. With Mr Brawn on board it looked like they were starting to get onto the right track for 2009 (there was no development of the 08 car so he had almost no influence on competetiveness this year).

They where not competitive in 2006, they where decent in qualifying but then just lot places hand over fist on sunday. It was a great source of ridicule for Button.
Or am I thinking of 2005?

[Garagiste]

Trying to run a team by commitee. Oh, and green trousers - not even worn for a bet.

[BullHead]

What about the nonsense excuse for pulling out - "the costs and the global financial crisis" - how daft is that? I know obviously they couldn't admit they actually failed in the top motorsport. But even the motorsport media has been falling for and peddling out this "financial crisis" line....I mean Honda. Honda can't afford F1? give me a break. Red bull can afford two - and they sell drinks not cars.

[BullHead]

Oh yeah, sorry folks, wrong thread. See Honda financial troubles... that's where I should have been...

[Phucaigh]

Dieter Rencken did a good article in the Journal section.

Honda got back into F1 for the wrong reasons....

[Atreiu]

If you can read portuguese, read Roberto Agresti's article. It's fantastic and tell's his view on Honda's failure and exit. http://www.gptotal.c...ti/20081210.asp

I might translate it later when I have some time.

[Nobody]

a big money title sponsor would have done them a whole lot of good

[sanjiro]

Nothing was going to help the Honda team.

NF had said in interviews more than 8 months ago that one of the big problems they faced was Honda using the F1 team as a great place to blood their new engineers.

They were treating the team like a training ground for the motor company.

This and the fact that on the cusp of their best performances they decided to sack Willis.
After they they plumited down the grid, with the final indignity getting whipped by the old car GW had given them the year before.

Willis may not be as good as Newy but his cars were running up the front and gave JB his one and only win.

[Craven Morehead]

What went wrong? Eh, what went right?

[AlexS]

If you can read portuguese, read Roberto Agresti's article. It's fantastic and tell's his view on Honda's failure and exit. http://www.gptotal.c...ti/20081210.asp

Excellent!

I don't know if Honda like he said got out because F1 is too overuled and rule restricted but that is one of the things i think is driving many engineers to not enter F1.
If that article is true is just the first result of what i think is the F1 Cultural Destruction waged by Mosley/Bernie.

[thiscocks]

Nick fry is a complete tool

[OssieFan]

They didn't win enough.

[Paul Parker]

sanjiro

Nothing was going to help the Honda team.

NF had said in interviews more than 8 months ago that one of the big problems they faced was Honda using the F1 team as a great place to blood their new engineers.

They were treating the team like a training ground for the motor company.



John Surtees suffered from precisely this over 40 years ago.