Japeneses manufacturers unsuccess recently in motorsport

[Spoutnik]

Nissan in WEC remind me Honda F1 PU project. In fact, all the Japenese manufacturers struggling in Motorsport overall since last year :

-Toyota, won only 1 times the WEC Championship, and always failed to win Le Mans. Getting totally raped this year by Porsche and Audi. And in Nascar their V8 seems less powerful and less reliable than the other engine.

-Honda, in WTCC they fail and win only 7 races since 2005 and no tittle. In F1, so much money spent for a public disaster for McLaren and Honda with furthermore a big mistake in their marketing/communication approach. In Indy they have an exclusive partnership with all team, but when Chevrolet come again, they lost, but sometimes they win (in 2013) and they win the Indy 500 but if you take an overall view, the Chevrolet engine seems a little bit better.

-Nissan, come to Le Mans many time without official participation, they come and they are 20sec a lap off the pace.

So, the Japenese working method is not good enough ?

[sgth0mas]

Nissan in WEC remind me Honda F1 PU project. In fact, all the Japenese manufacturers struggling in Motorsport overall since last year :

-Toyota, won only 1 times the WEC Championship, and always failed to win Le Mans. Getting totally raped this year by Porsche and Audi.

-Honda, in WTCC they fail and win only 7 races since 2005 and no tittle. In F1, so much money spent for a public disaster for McLaren and Honda with furthermore a big mistake in their marketing/communication approach. In Indy they have an exclusive partnership with all team, but when Chevrolet come again, they lost, but sometimes they win (in 2013) and they win the Indy 500 but if you take an overall view, the Chevrolet engine seems a little bit better.

-Nissan, come to Le Mans many time without official participation, they come and they are 20sec a lap off the pace.

So, the Japenese working method is not good enough ?

Yamaha seems ok in motogp, and honda isnt far off.

Toyota has started to improve again in nascar i believe

But honda has surely missed the mark in Indycar as well losing out to chevy.

Maybe focus has just shifted? Or other manufacturers have stepped up?

[Greg Locock]

Maybe the OP needs to provide some objective definitions for inclusion on his list, which actually looks like cherry picked special pleading to me.

I'd agree that in general Japanese OEMs have struggled when competing in established worldwide series, so has very other OEM unless they own the regulators (Ferrarri) or can blackmail them (Audi)

[skoop]

what's the audi blackmailing story? never heared of it

[ChrisF1]

It's an interesting subject, and I cannot wait to see Toyota return to the WRC with the Yaris - I think that's scheduled to be 2017, though I believe the car is out testing at the moment.

Although the manufacturers are performing poorly, there must be hell of a lot of Japanese tech within the cars themselves.

Since Toyota left the WRC in 1998, what have they actually won?

F1 - 0 race wins
WRC - not competing
WEC - 1 title
WTCC - not competing

[Samraj_official]

It wasnt exactly japanese manufacturers fault it was those designers and lack of talent within their engineering teams, toyota F1 TD was pascal vasselon one of those guy who did a poor job of designing cars with so much money and he is designing the toyota TS040 too!!!! So much worse is BMW state in motorsports!!!

[Samraj_official]

Btw YAMAHA Motogp team is a more spanish team than japanese team and they have almost a big racing R&D facility in spain!!!

[Greg Locock]

I probably have it wrong but didn't Audi re-enter LeMans having had the rules rewritten to allow their preferred engine?

[wesley123]

Maybe the OP needs to provide some objective definitions for inclusion on his list, which actually looks like cherry picked special pleading to me.

I'd agree that in general Japanese OEMs have struggled when competing in established worldwide series, so has very other OEM unless they own the regulators (Ferrarri) or can blackmail them (Audi)

afaik Japanese competitors have always been kind of hit-and-miss. I really can't think of much Japanese success in the world of motorsports.

[ChrisF1]

Maybe the OP needs to provide some objective definitions for inclusion on his list, which actually looks like cherry picked special pleading to me.

I'd agree that in general Japanese OEMs have struggled when competing in established worldwide series, so has very other OEM unless they own the regulators (Ferrarri) or can blackmail them (Audi)

afaik Japanese competitors have always been kind of hit-and-miss. I really can't think of much Japanese success in the world of motorsports.

I guess we would all point towards the Honda engine in the Williams and Mclaren mid 80's - early 90's period as a highlight.

How involved were Nissan with the BTCC Effort that were extremely strong in 1999?

[Spoutnik]

I specify "recently" in the tittle of the topic because in fact on the 80's-2000's, the Japenese manufacturers sucess, dominate almost everywhere.

-In Rally, from 1993 to 1999, Toyota, Mitsubishi and Subaru share all the tittles.

-In LeMans/Group C, Mazda won le Mans in 1991, before Nissan had the quick R90CK but they don't win Le Mans. They getting raped by Peugeot always with the TS010 but the next car, the GT-One was a beast, but like with the TS030 they lost despite the pace. In 24h of Daytona Nissan win in 1991 and 1994.

-In Formula One, to 87 at 91 Honda win with Williams and McLaren and they raped the rest of the field in 88.

After idk for CART and Nascar

[Greg Locock]

ok, so how do other nations do, using your rosy tinted selective memory process? I can't remember any group of OEMS whether British, French, American, Italian or German suddenly and consistently dominating several new fields, and for that matter who else is there?.

Without properly defined criteria your list just looks like cherry picking

Incidentally bear in mind that racing teams are paid for by marketing, not engineering.

[Spoutnik]

ok, so how do other nations do, using your rosy tinted selective memory process? I can't remember any group of OEMS whether British, French, American, Italian or German suddenly and consistently dominating several new fields, and for that matter who else is there?.

Without properly defined criteria your list just looks like cherry picking

Incidentally bear in mind that racing teams are paid for by marketing, not engineering.

Let's be honest, I'm a Japenese car fan since I'm interest by automotive and competition, and only Japenese manufacturers, struggling like this, all, at the same time, with the same issues.

[mrluke]

Nissan are so slow at lemans because they were a tad too optimistic on how much they could do in the time they had available, their 4wd car is now competing as fwd only which must be a massive hurdle to the whole concept of their car this year. Not really a fair comparison tbh.

Most of the series you are comparing to are European or American based where the long established teams have developed with the rules so have a home advantage. There is an interesting project at the moment trying to link DTM with japanese and american equivalents to make a true world touring car championship, should be good to see.

[Jersey Tom]

News flash - there is ebb and flow in dominance in racing. To attribute this to lack of work ethic or competence of a country or culture is unbelievably childish and naive. Likewise crazy to think different racing or automotive organizations in one country all share some common methodology.