The technological partnership between the Sauber F1 Team and Honda, which was intended to start from 2018 onwards, is no longer in place, the team has confirmed. Sauber has not announced yet which will be its power unit partner for 2018 and beyond.
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I do wonder what impact this is going to have on Haas.
I know Grosjean essentially moved himself into the Haas seat with him - rather mistakenly - being convinced it would get him a Ferrari seat.
Now Haas clearly is in no way a Ferrari 'junior' team, matter of fact, with announcing keeping current drivers, there was some media backlash
that it makes no sense ferrari doesn't park a junior driver there, and voilá, a couple weeks later [or less] we have Sauber being Ferrari Junior team.
That would imho cut short any of Grosjean's prospects of using HAAS to get into Ferrari and quite frankly, if there ever was a chance, it's pretty much gone
out the window now that Sauber is going to be just that when they surely are going to park Giovanazzi or Leclerc there.
So will Haas still have the benefit of grabbing Ferrari parts like they did the past 2 seasons, or will Sauber put a halt to that more or less [ or Ferrari themselves ]
as they don't want competition from Haas for their Junior team? [ read: Ferrari's Toro Rosso ].
Could we then see instead of Toro Rosso, Haas going for Honda engines ? Sure it wouldn't do them harm to get free engines / a giant discount and Honda money ?
I think there's also a pretty nice ring to it, Haas - Honda. I mean Ferrari's Ferrari, but if the reds are going to leave them in the cold, well, where will you go?
"Explain the ending to F1 in football terms"
"Hamilton was beating Verstappen 7-0, then the ref decided F%$& rules, next goal wins
while also sending off 4 Hamilton players to make it more interesting"
Haas-Honda would have enormous United States marketing appeal.
+1 . Honda is huge in America. Much bigger than it is in Europe. Haas-Honda would be really good if the results are decent. Sadly the Honda PU is flattered by the MCL32 chassis right now and putting it into a Haas will basically mean they would be squabbling with Sauber.
A lot of people are judging Sauber staying with Ferrari as the right move over Honda based on current performance. The problem with that, as has been the case in the past, things aren't as always clear cut as they appear. Remember when everyone said that Hamilton leaving McLaren was a career killer? He has an extra two titles now. Remember how everyone was judging Brawn as to not be that good due to having limited prep time? Mark Webber thought Williams was a better option that joining Renault for 2005, and we know how that turned out.
Point is, Honda is bad now, and may be bad in the future, but with the new spec bringing them more reliability and a little more power, what's to say they won't be good next year? Or that Ferrari will be any good? Not trying to defend Honda, because I'd probably go Ferrari as well if they were offering me the same as Hinda with a better looking engine outcome, but I wouldn't say any choice is validated until Round 1 2018.
Friendship with Honda ended, Renault is my new (and more reliable) friend.
What a cool livery they have absolutely classic the blue and gold
it looks like cr*p from the season start and i don't see how it's classic, they never ran anything like that.
"Explain the ending to F1 in football terms"
"Hamilton was beating Verstappen 7-0, then the ref decided F%$& rules, next goal wins
while also sending off 4 Hamilton players to make it more interesting"
So, good deal for Sauber! looks like all F1 teams are more or less (financial) very safe and in 2018 every team is driving with an up to date PU.
It does more or less look like that there will be senior and junior teams all around the grid, with STR and RBR as the most prominent and visible ones.
What I do question, after this news, what happend between HAAS and Ferrari? for the last two years it looked like they were becoming the Ferrari Junior team, but somehow it didn't progress.
So, good deal for Sauber! looks like all F1 teams are more or less (financial) very safe and in 2018 every team is driving with an up to date PU.
It does more or less look like that there will be senior and junior teams all around the grid, with STR and RBR as the most prominent and visible ones.
What I do question, after this news, what happend between HAAS and Ferrari? for the last two years it looked like they were becoming the Ferrari Junior team, but somehow it didn't progress.
Din't Haas always say that they want to start with a strong partnership, but become more and more independant over the years?
So, good deal for Sauber! looks like all F1 teams are more or less (financial) very safe and in 2018 every team is driving with an up to date PU.
It does more or less look like that there will be senior and junior teams all around the grid, with STR and RBR as the most prominent and visible ones.
What I do question, after this news, what happend between HAAS and Ferrari? for the last two years it looked like they were becoming the Ferrari Junior team, but somehow it didn't progress.
Din't Haas always say that they want to start with a strong partnership, but become more and more independant over the years?
What a team owner says and actually wants are often very different. I think Gene Haas knows very well where the cost efficient point of independents is.