De Ferran Quits

[waynes]

http://www.itv-f1.com/News_Article.aspx?PO_ID=40052

Honda's sporting director Gil de Ferran is to leave the team with immediate effect.

The former Indianapolis 500 winner had joined Honda in early 2005, but was not happy with how his position had developed.

"I am obviously very disappointed to be leaving the Honda F1 team," de Ferran said.

"I have a huge amount of respect and admiration for Honda, with whom I have been successfully associated for more than years.

"Consequently, my decision to leave has not been an easy one.

"I simply feel that I came to this team to fulfil a particular role and it has not materialised as I had hoped.

"I would like to thank everyone at the team for the support I have been given and I wish them luck in the future."

Team boss Nick Fry admitted that de Ferran had become unhappy with his role at Honda.

"I am disappointed that Gil is leaving our team," Fry said.

"Since he joined us in 2005 we have enjoyed a very positive relationship.

"However, a Formula 1 team is rather like a jigsaw puzzle in that every piece has to fit precisely in its place.

"Gil has become increasingly uncomfortable in his role and feels the time has now come to seek fresh opportunities.

"We are very much hoping that Gil will choose to maintain close links with the Honda family."

De Ferran was a contemporary of David Coulthard and Rubens Barrichello in the junior formulae before switching to American racing.

He first worked with Honda in Champ Cars in 1996, and took two titles with its engines before switching to the rival IRL Indycar Series.

He retired from racing at the end of 2003 and took up his position with Honda's F1 squad a year later.

Honda has had a difficult season, having managed to score only one point in the opening nine races.

here we go

[Spencifer_Murphy]

Yeh I just saw that, you beat me to posting it lol. Personally I've always thought that Honda have far too many people trying to leading it in far too many directions at once. How on earth else do none of the lessons learnt last year get carried across to this year's car? Each and every year since the end of 2005 Honda have had aerodunamic problems, and to my recollection I remember seeing lots of work being done to the front wing to fix them.

Einstein's definition of insanity: Doing the same thing over and over and hoping for a different result.

Gil went to Honda as Sporting Director but I got the feeling (and with this news I'm convinced) that his influence was rather stiffled as too many other people tryed to make too many choices.

[Fan Solo]

Just goes to show, never delete a pic lol, could this have been the final exit?

<img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1146/830 ... 1117cd.jpg" width="372" height="500" alt="Gil de Ferran leaves F1 sml" />

[Rob W]

Oh well. .. there might be some job openings at Honda after-all..

Rob W

[ginsu]

I like Gil personally, but what, exactly did he do for Honda Racing? He seemed somewhat like a trophy piece to attract attention. Did they use his knowledge to their advantage or did they just sideline him most of the time?

At least Honda is shaking things up, which can only be good considering the rut they're in. They should have never fired David Richards!

[rymagik]

I like Gil personally, but what, exactly did he do for Honda Racing? He seemed somewhat like a trophy piece to attract attention. Did they use his knowledge to their advantage or did they just sideline him most of the time?

At least Honda is shaking things up, which can only be good considering the rut they're in. They should have never fired David Richards!

I think some of the above posts might have been more right on. Gil came in wanting to have more influence, but they sidelined him. I mean, ginsu's right, what exactly did he do? Does anyone know?

As far as Honda shaking things up, I don't know if that's so much of a good thing. Continuity is always important, otherwise how can you iterate to the optimum solution?

My first conspiracy thought was that Gil was involved in Stepney-gate somehow? I mean, didn't Coughlan and Stepney meet with Nick Fry? Who arranged that?

[West]

From Grandprix.com:

"De Ferran says that he is leaving because the role he joined the team to do is not what he expected to be doing and he was not happy in the situation in which he found himself. His role was to help the drivers to deal with the large amounts of data are work out how to improve the cars. It seems, however, that the was some resistance to this idea in the technical management."

[wowf1]

Maybe it has been a political decision with the aim of attracting media attention to De Ferran, and distracting people from the real issue of the Stepney/Coughlan/Fry meeting! Which could as yet be suspect...slight conspiracy theory I know but you never know in F1.