When the F1 engine suppliers are spending close to $500m pa on engine development I find it incomprehensible that they don’t have at least a small team devoted to data gathering on the other suppliers. They must have surely. In that case you think anything that’s in the public domain, even if you need a magazine or cable subscription… would be vacuumed up.ispano6 wrote: ↑18 Jun 2021, 04:34I get what you're saying. I'm not saying that no one else is purchasing the Japanese publications. These are publications that do not have English versions published. So even as you say those like Craig Scarborough and Sam Collins are purchasing the Japanese language publications such as AS-web, they are via print or PDF only, and unless you have the high quality PDFs or the magazines scanned and a sophisticated image to text translation software, they are having people read the articles and manually translating them, as there are no English versions available. I felt a great deal of reservation writing about the things written in the publications, and honestly some details aren't as superficial as you might think. I can accept that it's reflective of their confidence in their technology and when I say the naivety of the Japanese I'm not talking about Honda - that is a comment with regard to NHK and As-web!GhostF1 wrote: ↑18 Jun 2021, 03:15I love your contributions mate. It's always really appreciated. But to be honest, it's naive to think "no one else purchased the publications". I am living proof of that...ispano6 wrote: ↑18 Jun 2021, 02:12
Let's just say that just because it's released in the "public" domain doesn't mean that anyone has access to it. It is after all privileged information that can only be attained by having access to the publication by purchasing or subscribing to it. The documentary by NHK, for instance, is not allowed to be broadcast or reproduced outside of Japan. There is an inherent naivety on the part of the Japanese to think that no one outside of Japan is interested or paying attention - the galapagos effect - which is certainly a trait (good or bad) on the part of the Japanese. Personally I'm of the opinion that Honda should stay quiet and not allow these articles or documentaries to reveal their innovations, but then it wouldn't be the Honda that everyone expects and respects.
Aside from types like us and this forum, you can bet some media high profiles with a huge interest like Craig Scarborough or Sam Collins etc, not to mention those in known media outlets, would of spent the small fee on that publication. I'd go so far as to say they aren't doing their job if they didn't.
The information Honda have released might seem like a lot and I see plenty of people expressing surprise, but it's still very superficial stuff. All the really special, fine details are all left out. Sure, tell us you've moved the camshafts closer together to aid packaging and change combustion chamber shape. Tell us you have an experimental new coating that's unlocked your ICE's limit, tell us you've made vast improvements to the Turbo to compensate for ICE efficiency gain, tell us you made a breakthrough with the MGU-H, it's cross-block shaft and it's balancing, tell us you've found big gains in your battery development in Milton Keynes and tell us you've got a unique combustion concept.
This is all extremely exciting stuff to hear and it gives me great satisfaction waking up in the morning to see a new article regarding Honda. And it's something no other manufacturer really does with sharing this, but at the same time they are giving us next to no detail whatsoever, well not enough that would be very useful to rivals or something that risks exposing their concepts. So I wouldn't call the Japanese naive, they aren't sharing their IP. All of it is clear they err on the side of caution with what they share, but this also lets them publicly celebrate the engineering prowess they've displayed. Honda has done a huge justice for the V6 Hybrids. Celebrating the majesty that they are in a way that no other manufacturer on the field has and doing so very publicly while acknowledging the excellence of their engineers. Kudos from me.
Also, if you're able to find the March NHK documentary on Kumamoto plating and know of where it can be re-watched I'd like to know. The only article I read was the Q&A of Asaki during the press conference but I seemed to have lost my recording of the documentary and wanted to look up some names mentioned in it.