No Honda money for Brawn GP

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WhiteBlue
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Joined: 14 Apr 2008, 20:58
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Re: No Honda money for Brawn GP

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It makes sense to recall the situation that lead to Honda pulling the plug on F1. They incurred a massive loss from declining sales and embarked on a big restructuring project involving factory shut downs and massive job and wage cuts.

Running an unsuccessfull F1 operation at the same time was opening the board to all kind of criticism. So there wasn't really an alternative to shutting F1 down and writing the losses off whatever it would cost.

While this was happening the budgets of the automotive sponsored F1 teams were still exceeding 300 mil € although some reductions were being discussed. This prevented interesting parties like Prodrive from taking over a team that obviously had a huge surplus of human resources compared to any forseeable revenue stream.

10-30 mil € in payments from FOM to Honda were small change compared to writing down the capital investments and the cost of shutting the company down. So I believe this was never an issue the Honda board even considered.

From a FOM point of view it would have been desirable to tie Honda into a Concord style committment, but I doubt they ever came close to sign anything of that nature. So all payments were subject to future contractual agreements that never materialized.

Hypothetically the Honda money could go to Brawn or the other Fota teams. But for that to happen FOTA would have to sign up with Bernie for 5 years and they are still far away from doing this. So there is a grey area that will likely be exploited by Bernie to keep the money.

It appears that F1 nowadays is run on a year by year basis defined by the renewalof the competition license by the FIA. This seems to suit Max Mosley well because the federation has no interest in getting bogged down with long term committments. They seem to prefer flexibility to shape the competition to the needs of the motoring public, safety and the world economy.

It is Bernie who needs stability of long term contracts because he typically makes multi year deals with promoters and TV companies. I'm getting the impression that the FIA stopped their support for a concord framework in 2003 when they sold all their economic rights to FOM. Their job only gets more difficult when every Tom Dick and Harry can veto everything down to the color of the marshal's underwear.

So they introduced majority voting and the bickering process moved over to the FOTA meetings. My impression is that this is working out quite nicely. Instead of being eternally bogged down we saw the major reform of the OWG this year and we are going to see more changes next year that will benefit the fan from my point of view. If the big wigs in FOTA don't like the change I say tough luck. As a pure spectator I have some sympathy with their problem but in the end it is better for me to watch a lively F1 season with close races and a championship race that is still quite unpredictable.
Formula One's fundamental ethos is about success coming to those with the most ingenious engineering and best .............................. organization, not to those with the biggest budget. (Dave Richards)

vall
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Joined: 04 Nov 2008, 21:31

Re: No Honda money for Brawn GP

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http://totalf1.com/full_story/view/3038 ... cclestone/

So, indeed, if you leave you loose the money and now it is up to FOTA to decide what to do with Honda's 20 Mil

PNSD
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Joined: 03 Apr 2006, 18:10

Re: No Honda money for Brawn GP

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Now this will be interesting.

I guess the majority will chose to give the money to Brawn but after the whole diffuser issue what will Flavio's decision be?

I cant help but feel this yet another attempt to try and drive a wedge between the teams.

Im sorry if I have missed it, but what happened when Bennetton changed to Renault? Or Jordan to Midland, then Spypker, then ForceIndia. What were the outcomes concerning those teams?

xpensive
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Joined: 22 Nov 2008, 18:06
Location: Somewhere in Scandinavia

Re: No Honda money for Brawn GP

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If it is really up to FOTA alone, which I very much doubt, I suggest they spend the 20 MGBP on one helluva farewell weekend for Silverstone? Exibition races, historical displays and access to drivers old and young. Open bar & buffe around the clock, including free admission for everyone registered at F1Technical!

Eh, almost everyone that is.
"I spent most of my money on wine and women...I wasted the rest"

vall
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Joined: 04 Nov 2008, 21:31

Re: No Honda money for Brawn GP

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PNSD wrote:Now this will be interesting.

I guess the majority will chose to give the money to Brawn but after the whole diffuser issue what will Flavio's decision be?

I cant help but feel this yet another attempt to try and drive a wedge between the teams.

Im sorry if I have missed it, but what happened when Bennetton changed to Renault? Or Jordan to Midland, then Spypker, then ForceIndia. What were the outcomes concerning those teams?
The more relevant question to ask is what happened to Super Aguri money? The thing is that Honda officialy withdrew from F1 and then BR bought the team. In the cases you mention, those teams did not withdraw from F1, they were just sold and changed the owner. That may make a difference.

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Rob W
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Joined: 18 Aug 2006, 03:28

Re: No Honda money for Brawn GP

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vall wrote:The thing is that Honda officialy withdrew from F1 and then BR bought the team.
We don't know that this is the complete version at all.

It is in F1's best interests to keep teams going, even in a new incarnation, and I would think it almost certain that they have a series of transition policies which allow for the change-over of teams and to consider the on-sale period.

Likewise, since completely new entries need to be approved/vetted by the FIA etc it would make absolute sense that Honda would keep it's options open as long as possible as not doing so would create an extra hurdle for anyone considering buying a team.

What is said publicly to PlanetF1 and Autosport etc is just the broad strokes for news-readers.