General Honda F1 Topic

[muramasa]

I don’t think it’s a Japanese thing to take what a company or its representatives say with a pinch of salt. According to Arai Honda contributed nothing financially to McLaren. We know this is and was patently untrue. Likewise VAG publicly claimed there was nothing wrong with its Diesel emissions until the EPA took its gloves off and turned nasty.

To take what corporations and their representatives say all the time at face value is plain naive.

I welcome Honda’s openness re it’s PU but there is no way we can prove that the issues they acknowledge in public really were the main problems they had to resolve.

What Arai denied at Suzuka 2014 was the amus story that Honda was injecting cash of 100mil to McLaren in 2014 (or was it practically even from 2013), not about anything of 2015 onward. From the manner he dismissed it and rather quixotic nature of the contents (giving away 100mil cash to mclaren with no strings attached from 2014? doubtful), I judge such story must be false. It's this story that is surviving til this day, that "honda was giving 100mil/year cash to mclaren (no matter what year)".

2015 onward, as far as I know, Arai nor Sato (ex-motorsport chief of Honda Motor) never mentioned anything about financial subject (either I missed it or journo never asked or did not write or they had no comment policy).
From 2015 onward for sure looks like they were paying quite a bit of driver salary at least, also possibly whatever supports that are not direct cash like component purchase, cargo, flight, traveling etc as well as cash itself perhaps, but the fact that McLaren could afford to split with Honda so easily suggests that the support Honda was providing to McLaren may not have been that big after all. Engine alone is like 20mil, add 100mil plus all the forms of support it can easily be 150mil and that's huge, and that was the basis of the argument that there was no way McLaren would go for customer, but one has to question about it now, maybe free PU and driver salary and not much more than that.

[ispano6]

Actually, he was no puppet and he should get credit for what he did contribute, which was maintain what semblance of professionalism between the two companies had left. I would even say his professionalism is what kept McLaren's public criticism at bay. If you understood what he said in Japanese you would know that his was a voice of reality and that the only thing that matters are results. His disappointment was subdued but he was right in that as a works engine provider they needed to deliver what McLaren urgently needed but he never criticized McLaren for what they asked no matter how unrealistic it seemed. The Honda way is to fail until they succeed - it was Soichiro Honda that instilled this into the company ethos, and Honda F1 racing was determined to find the solution McLaren needed but it took them longer than some were willing to wait. This is what pains most of us Honda fans the most. But in the end parting with McLaren was the right path to take, and now that Tanabe-san is in charge he rightly and subtly is steering Honda toward a works partnership with a true "top" team and his diction is precise and deliberate. He defends Honda in a way different from Arai-san who was a bit unfounded but nonetheless admirable. Hasegawa-san did help to identify that the original approach was a dead-end and McLaren too "helped" in waking Honda from a bad dream.

[McMika98]

but the fact that McLaren could afford to split with Honda so easily suggests that the support Honda was providing to McLaren may not have been that big after all. Engine alone is like 20mil, add 100mil plus all the forms of support it can easily be 150mil and that's huge, and that was the basis of the argument that there was no way McLaren would go for customer, but one has to question about it now, maybe free PU and driver salary and not much more than that.

Ok dude you are guilty of doing exactly what you claim some people here do, speculation without facts. Kinda hypocritical.
You of all people must know the reasons for Mclaren split, they thought they could win races with their car. U can find quotes for that, it was a gamble hence the pressure on the fatsos. There are several articles by Uk jornos mentioning not only the Honda funds lost by Mclaren but the severance payment of around 60million to Honda for breaking the deal. Why would they agree to pay such sums to Honda if they were only getting a GP2 engine and nandos salary.

[Wazari]

i always believe hasegawa had terrible leadership qualities. he probably was scared to hightlight any faults of mclaren. when we know there were plenty. no wonder the japs working for sakura did not want to work under him. no one would. as a leader you need to stand up and defend when required if accusation were wrong. hasegawa just was a scared not confident mclaren puppet.

I think what you say about Hasegawa-san is overly harsh. Also the term "japs" is extremely offensive. He was definitely not McLaren's puppet and put in a "no-win" situation. I personally don't care for some of the ways he communicated things but having "terrible leadership qualities" is not justified.

[Wazari]

Ok dude you are guilty of doing exactly what you claim some people here do, speculation without facts. Kinda hypocritical.
You of all people must know the reasons for Mclaren split, they thought they could win races with their car. U can find quotes for that, it was a gamble hence the pressure on the fatsos. There are several articles by Uk jornos mentioning not only the Honda funds lost by Mclaren but the severance payment of around 60million to Honda for breaking the deal. Why would they agree to pay such sums to Honda if they were only getting a GP2 engine and nandos salary.

The severance payment back to Honda for breaking the contact is estimated at 6 billion yen.

[turbof1]

Ok dude you are guilty of doing exactly what you claim some people here do, speculation without facts. Kinda hypocritical.
You of all people must know the reasons for Mclaren split, they thought they could win races with their car. U can find quotes for that, it was a gamble hence the pressure on the fatsos. There are several articles by Uk jornos mentioning not only the Honda funds lost by Mclaren but the severance payment of around 60million to Honda for breaking the deal. Why would they agree to pay such sums to Honda if they were only getting a GP2 engine and nandos salary.

The severance payment back to Honda for breaking the contact is estimated at 6 billion yen.

Well, depending on the currency value at the time, that could have been 60 million dollars. Also mr Wazari-san, does Toro Rosso get any sort of funding or sponsor money aside the power units being for free?

[techman]

@wazari. just want to say sorry if my earlier post hurt your feelings. its just my opinion. iam also from an asian background. i know there is culture difference between asians and westerners. i personally prefer the western culture. they are more open, ready to speak their mind and brave.

[turbof1]

Moderation has been done, Techman graciously apologied. I think the issue has been closed by that.

[muramasa]

Ok dude you are guilty of doing exactly what you claim some people here do, speculation without facts. Kinda hypocritical.
You of all people must know the reasons for Mclaren split, they thought they could win races with their car. U can find quotes for that, it was a gamble hence the pressure on the fatsos. There are several articles by Uk jornos mentioning not only the Honda funds lost by Mclaren but the severance payment of around 60million to Honda for breaking the deal. Why would they agree to pay such sums to Honda if they were only getting a GP2 engine and nandos salary.

?
What I'm doing is induction/deduction based on facts and it's fine thing for anyone to do. I appreciate your attention on me but what I always criticize are, jumping onto false rumor without source/evidence, thought/speculation without facts or based on those false rumors, wrong/inappropriate translation, etc, but never anything as long as it's based on facts, why would I?
By the way, even based on facts, the other person might reach conclusion/idea that I do not agree with, in such case I say I disagree with you but it's not about criticizing about getting facts wrong, it's about what it is, disagreeing with you.

The fact is that what Arai denied was 2014 cash injection 100mil at Suzuka race in 2014 (not anything about 2015-), the fact is that McLaren split with Honda. At first the most rational thought in first half of 2017 was McLaren splitting with Honda wouldnt happen, and one of the major reasons for that was huge payment from Honda (personally I had totally different thought, again based on facts like those quotes and general knowledge and common sense, but that was major and rational and logical thought anyway). Now that they split, one can question about it, at least revisit and review to assess whether "100mil" was right, or really that much, or not, that's it. What is wrong with it?

That severance payment story was the one by Evening Standard iirc? I googled "60 million honda mclaren", "severance mclaren honda" "evening standard mclaren honda" etc etc but cannot find anything except this forum below. As far as I can remember, the evening standard (or whatever else) story defo went like "whatever million severance payment by mclaren to honda has been seen by evening standard", that's it, there was no credible source/evidence presented. If you have other "several articles", please provide.

All I can find by searching various terms on this subject was this
viewtopic.php?f=15&t=25527&start=7245
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DSPNFkXWsAA21rE.jpg
Seems excerpt from Autosport article. It says 60 million annual sponsorship fee from Honda, not severance pay mclaren paid to Honda. Perhaps you remembered wrongly? or if you have other "several articles" that stated 60million severance fee with evidence, please provide.
Needless to say these financial reports by media include quite a bit of speculation without firm evidence, so not something to blandish as fact.

What some people are unable to do is classification of info, like distinguish fact/evidence and guessing/creation/false given by media or whispered in internet sphere, and put anything that cannot be confirmed as concrete fact into "temp/pending list shelf" inside your brain. Keep eating anything thrown at you indiscriminately and blindly, that's the problem. I do not totally dismiss the evening standard or whatever's severence fee story or anything else. While I put many into trash can, I put many in "pending list shelf" for now or forever, unless and until there is anything credible come out (even in the pending list shelf, there are so many divisions/compartments according to the level of credibility, from the one quite close to "fact shelf" to the one almost "trash shelf"). Of course it's impossible for me as one individual to catch everything, I know I'm missing a lot, so if you have anything credible, please kindly provide, thank you.

Even "honda was paying alonso (jb/sv as well) salary" is not confirmed as fact, there is no evidence for it (that we can confirm), but mainly because such info is confidential. But from some circumstantial facts (like Alonso attending Honda event, round speculation on McLaren finance, Alonso's value as driver, Alonso's value compared to other top drivers, etc), you can still deduce Honda must have been paying those. These stuffs are logical induction/deduction. So some things can be put into "not totally fact, but most likely fact considering various other facts, still leave some margin on detail" shelf.

Needless to say, "fact" is not about taking what one said as it is without questioning/thinking. For example one's quote itself is fact, but whether taking the contents of the quote as fact or not or something else depends on the case. Like he/she's saying truth or euphemism or dodging or lies or joking and so on and on and on. That's called interpretation/analysis/etc.

[Talisman]

https://www.racefans.net/2018/06/06/why ... erfection/

Regarding Honda’s financial contributions to McLaren the above article by Rencken is worth reading. It’s worth noting that McLaren publishes its financial activity at companies house and one can use that to estimate how much they got from Honda which is one of the means Rencken used to calculate his figures.

[Wazari]

As I'm sure in other industrial sectors as well, transparency to the public is often discouraged by the top executives in the automotive world. This is especially true when it comes to racing budgets as a very small percentage of shareholders are probably race fans and would not understand the spending done for this "unnecessary" venture. Honda's financial contribution to McLaren were enormous and while exact figures were not disclosed to us, total package figures of 11 to 13 billion yen annually were often tossed around among the "inner circle". However one can always deny a certain figure and not lie if the amount is even off by one yen, so............The severance package was disclosed as what was thought to be damage control message to the premature divorce of the marriage at HRD.

[hasika]

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/red- ... l-1046734/

Red Bull has decided to switch to Honda F1 engines next year, high level sources have revealed, with confirmation of the move likely ahead of this weekend’s French Grand Prix.

[sn809]

The severance was well covered here. I am sure every one remembers the smiling/happy faces of the Honda execs at that time.
That for a fan is more than enough knowing it is a Japanese company

[GhostF1]

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/red- ... 46734/amp/

So based on that^, (which is fantastic news) and Honda being a little weary as to whether they can actually take the pressure of supplying a WDC contender team, and obviously Mclaren Honda's history, the contract is likely riddled with performance clauses however, thoughts on the notion Honda might ramp up their budget?

I feel like they have a big opportunity here. They need to throw everything at this. If RB becomes relatively average next year, even with the new aero regs coming into play, Honda will take the full force of the outrage that would inevitably come.

[Wazari]

俺の 夢が 叶いしました.