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Yoshiharu Yamamoto, a senior Honda board member who is CEO of Honda R&D, says that he would be keen to get the company back to F1.
"I cannot speak for Honda, but on a personal level I love racing, but there is a lot involved when you are in F1," he said in an exclusive interview with AUTOSPORT"s sister publication Autocar.
"It is the very top of auto racing and that requires a large commitment. But it is true that we do look up at those races and hope that one day we can take part again.
"I do not personally think we can just go straight back immediately, but there is potential for the rules to change and attract us. I follow the rules, certainly, and if they present an opportunity then it would be nice to go back."
I bet he wants the new engines to go through and more power train development as most auto makers do.
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)
It's a mistake to cater to manufacturers. By and large, their participation in motorsport will always be fickle, dependent on factors the sport cannot control.
The context is that Honda have been threatening to leave MotoGP and move to WSBK if the expected cap on ECU and electronics is pushed in in 2014.
Honda do not want any electronic restriction and so the WSBK jump was on.....until last week when the overall owners of both series (Bridgepoint ) decided to bring both series under the wing of DORNA who run MotoGP>
So, nowhere for Honda to go if they do leave MotoGP...
bhallg2k wrote:It's a mistake to cater to manufacturers. By and large, their participation in motorsport will always be fickle, dependent on factors the sport cannot control.
It would be wrong to allow them a mad cost race as in 2001-2008. If you prohibit that the presence of manuafacturers is quite beneficial. Actually they bring a lot of benefits to F1.
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)
bhallg2k wrote:It's a mistake to cater to manufacturers. By and large, their participation in motorsport will always be fickle, dependent on factors the sport cannot control.
I think this is a longstanding myth. Historically, it's the independent teams which come and go at an alarming rate. I think fans perceive the opposite merely because they place undue importance on the manufacturer teams. In truth, no one really cares if an HRT comes or goes, but if a Honda or Toyota leave, then doom is surely upon us all.
Yoshiharu Yamamoto, a senior Honda board member who is CEO of Honda R&D, says that he would be keen to get the company back to F1.
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"I do not personally think we can just go straight back immediately, but there is potential for the rules to change and attract us. I follow the rules, certainly, and if they present an opportunity then it would be nice to go back."
I bet he wants the new engines to go through and more power train development as most auto makers do.
Mr Yamamoto is saying that (at least for now) Honda aren't coming back
I think that he wants very open rules (that would allow scope for Honda's expertise to beat the others)
In 1968 Honda left F1 (IMO because the Cosworth DFV made every other engine look stupid) and didn't come back until the engine to beat was the Renault turbo (easy for Honda to beat)
if the rules had standardised the DFV type of engine they would not have come back
so the Hondas of this world will not come back as MB etc will have a head start, which is why MB etc have got these rules, 'to'get the ball and run with it' (and won't therefor IMO have them opened up)
this is both company's board and shareholder power in (discreet) policy-making action
bhallg2k wrote:It's a mistake to cater to manufacturers. By and large, their participation in motorsport will always be fickle, dependent on factors the sport cannot control.
It would be wrong to allow them a mad cost race as in 2001-2008. If you prohibit that the presence of manuafacturers is quite beneficial. Actually they bring a lot of benefits to F1.
That's impossible to prohibit, and we might as well agree to disagree on that one right now.
Pup wrote:I think this is a longstanding myth. Historically, it's the independent teams which come and go at an alarming rate. I think fans perceive the opposite merely because they place undue importance on the manufacturer teams. In truth, no one really cares if an HRT comes or goes, but if a Honda or Toyota leave, then doom is surely upon us all.
What I meant is that factors outside of F1 play a bigger role in a manufacturer's participation in the sport than they do for privateers. If the economy tanks or if there's a change in corporate governance, a manufacturer will easily walk away, because a corporation's job is to increase shareholder value, and that's it. An F1 team's first job is to be competitive.
It's about goals and principles, I think. As such, I think it's a mistake to try to make regulations somehow "road relevant" in an attempt to lure automakers into the fray.
Id welcome them back, as their last F1 engine was pretty decent, it was on par with the Mercedes FO108x and Ferrari 056 at the time, the RA10x engines were quite good in terms of overall power and fuel consumption was on par with the Renault RS27-20xx engine as well. The reason they left was down to financing two teams to the tune of almost €500m a year, split 80/20 in favour on the works teams side to Super Aguri. And if rumors are to belived, if the Honda RA109/Brawn BGP001 chassis had the Honda engine and KERS system the car would have been a futher second a lap down the road. But that car was a beautiful freak that had 4 wind tunnels focused on it with almost 1,500 staff focused on it at one point.
Honda have been looking at a pull out of Moto GP for a year to eighteen months now, all down to the infighting about the future rules of the sport in tech and sporting side. Also their budget for Their factory team there in 2008 was a rumored €138m, this is now at arround €150m from what im led to belive. Thaats a budget that dewarfs even the most wealthy mid pack teams in F1, you could run a Hispania F1 Team in 2010 for the €38m and still have a budget to run the Sauber F1 Team that same year.
I think if Honda decide to return i think they should just come back as a engine supplier as thats where there is going to be a great ammount of tech crossover/spillover from F1 and LMP1/LMP2 in the next 5 or so years, and if engine suppliers are going to be cost capped, i think a €75m figure would be a decent figure. And if the teams are going to moan about a F1 engine cost i think €12m a season for a engine supply, but with the F1 engine also being avalable to be used in LMP2 for instance for say €3m a season in a detuned form for a single car, i think there could be a massive amount of opertunity for the engine manufacturers to come back. However id like to see them as a engine omly programme and not as a team as this is where i think they fall short and get embroliled in things. Id like to see Honda, BMW and Toyota back as engine only suppliers, but this isnt going to happen.
In the short term, Honda wont return, in the medium to long term, the lure of F1 to Honda, Toyota and BMW is too strong. Look at Renault, they sold the team and kept the engine supply and this is and has beem more fiscally and promotionally advantagous of the brand and company. However they have got 4 teams now and a fuel and lubricants deal with Total and Elf to suppliment their expenditure.
I think they have a secret R&D place at the moment where they are working on something, and i think it could be 2015 for a Honda return as then they can develop a engine outside of Homologation rules and come in with a better engine as a result, and a engine that could have been running arround Motegi or Suzuka in a older car for days and weeks to get its relyability good as a result.
I think its only time till one or two manufacturers return. Lets face the Honda/McLaren link has happened a couple times in the past 18 months, and there has been a rumor floating arround that Cosworth may even pull out before 2013, but i think they will be done after 2013 and so i think there will be at least 1 new engine supplier in 2013, and it wont be the failed PURE.
LionKing wrote:I really don't care about Honda. Somehow all Japanese manufacturers failed their attempts in F1.
The Brawn GP car was designed under Honda i believe.
Yet, still won when it was installed with a Mercedes engine. I doubt it would have won with an unreliable Honda engine.
2009 was more about the double diffuser loophole and getting the jump on other teams than the design of BGP01. That is why the other teams caught up with them in the second half.
