Saturday, December 13, 2008

R.I.P Honda

It has been sometime since I did post here but thanks to a crazy work schedule, I have not been able to comment on the recent things which have rocked the F1 world. Honda pulling out of F1 was a shocker as Honda was just not another independent team which has run out of money, but Honda has been on and off in F1 and well we just cannot forget the 80’s when Honda powered Williams and McLaren’s dominated for close to a decade. Then Honda took off and well instead of making Jordan the works team they decided to back BAR and eventually bought the team. Wonder what would have happened had Honda made Jordan their works team or just even Williams as now things would have been different. For the amount of money they drained in F1, which led to them finishing runner-up in the constructor’s championship in 2004 and of course Jenson Button winning the Hungarian grand prix thanks to the rain.

Honda is not a big loss to F1 as the last few years Honda has hardly inspired anyone. Even their sister team with 1/10th of their budgets managed to outperform them in 2007. I guess had Honda finished in the top 4 this season maybe they may not have pulled the plug but when you keep finishing at the tail end of the grid, the company lost their patience and just pulled the plug. Though they had high hopes for 2009 with Ross Brawn and KERS, well I am sure they may have not win the title but they could have given Toyota and Red Bull a run for their money. Now looking at the operations, still it is not clear if Honda will supply engine for 2009, if not it is not at all an attractive option for the possible buyer. Well Ferrari will have the stock of engines as Force India has switched to Mercedes-Benz while Mercedes could also support another thing. But it would be great to see Prodrive take over the operations and run the team as they have a racing heritage.

On the whole, the whole F1 experiment as a constructor was a disaster for Honda and well I just hope that once the recession is over they do make a comeback atleast as an engine supplier maybe to Williams to relive the old glorious days of F1.

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