Carlin pace

[Noddy]

Does anyone know if there is a link between Sato and Mr Honda from Japan? I think someone posted a similar question not so long ago but I never got to see the replies.

Anyway, as I understand it Neil Brown Engineering supplies and maintains virtually all the Mugen Honda engines at f3 meetings with the exception of Carlin. I may be wrong but I understand that Carlin use specially imported Japanese Mugen Honda engines and are maintained by someone else.

Anyone heard anything along these lines?

[Marshal]

Hi Noddy and welcome to 10 Tenths, you've obviously been reading for a while so I hope you enjoy posting

I think it was the Duma thread where this came up. The gist of it seemed to be that Carlin might have special engines, but no one really knows, and it is acknowledged that the drivers are pretty good too. I remain to be convinced there is anything more than the team and drivers doing a very good job, as Manor Motorsport, Stewart Racing and West Surrey Racing have done in the past.

And is understand it Sato has no rich family, but has won Honda support through talent. As I keep saying, I'm not supprised he makes occasional mistakes at the moment (like at Croft having seen the footage last weekend) as he never raced Karts, and this is his 4th season of racing cars, so he is much less experienced than almost all of his rivals.

Its interesting to note that the top two in F3 this year haven't done karts as Derek Hayes came from short oval racing.

[Noddy]

Thanks Marshall,

I was looking for that thread for ages! mmmm. The jury still seems to be out on this one.

Its certainly true that this guy has the balls to to the job. His talent doesn't seem to be in question and I agree with you that having not done carts he may be a little green in some areas. In fact both Carlin drivers look pretty tasty.

The only thing that concerns me is the fact that - from what I have heard - no matter what other teams do to their car set-up there are areas where they cannot cope with the Carlin pace. One rumour that I heard was that no-one but no-one was allowed to touch their engines and that at race meetings there are only two guys who are allowed to go near them whereas the majority of other teams have their Mugen's tuned by guys from Neil Brown Engineering who 'do the rounds' of the garages between races.

If you want to enter the realms of extreme speculation - one suggestion has it that from time to time the engines are crated and packaged off to Japan for inspection and analysis and are then returned. Who knows. One for the X-Files I think!

Good luck to them I say. I think the drivers true talent will shine through anyway - nobody in F1 would be fooled.

But if anyone knows anything different let me know. I guess I would just like to see a flat playing field for everyone to perform on - and perhaps this is just paranoia.....oh, the voices are coming....!

[Rimrider]

Noddy. I'm afraid there is no such thing as a flat playing field. Its a pipedream. Anything where theres something mechanical involved theres no controlable equality. Shame but true.

As for Carlin I think you will find that they are a superb team. They have some very very good people (alot of ex-F1) and they are very switched on.