Quote:
Originally Posted by Casper
And your thoughts after watching it?
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There was a delay between me seeing the suggestion to watch and me actually watching. During that delay I ended up forgetting "why" it came up. So I watched it somewhat cold with knowing what to pay attention to. Additionally its been a few days now since I watched it, so some details are already forgotten!
The interview was over an hour long and it left me wanting more info. Overall, it was a handful of misc anecdotes. I left with the general impression that...
* Ross was very much in charge
* He had a plan to move forward and had a good working relationship with Honda.
* That he was able to level set the performance of the overall car for the team.
* That included feedback to Honda that the existing engine was NOT competitive (contrary to what Honda had thought.)
* The focus was on 2009 and for the most part the 2008 package was ignored. It was clearly a building year.
* That the stars aligned very much properly for it them to achieve success in 2009
* That there were very short of cash and did little or no development to the 2009 package for quite a long time after the season started.
* Honda did their best to provide a soft landing for the team.
* Ross seems relatively humble and having his name on the team was both embarrassing and a source of pride.
Given your question to me above, I had to look at earlier posts to see why you brought it up. Which was basically a question of "What might it have been if Honda had remained." Clearly we will never know for sure, but thinking back to the interview some things jump out at me...
The plan was for 2008 to be a "rebuilding year" for the entire solution. So the focus was on 2009. And given the feedback to Honda from Ross, and that they seemed to have a good working relationship, that had to include improvements to the engine. The 2008 car used the RA808E engine. I seem to find evidence online that talks about a RA809E engine. Which I assume would have been the Honda engine for the 2009 car. I assume they listened to the feedback from Ross/team about the deficiencies with the 2008 engine. Plus, it is clear that Ross engaged Honda to provide them with an engine even after Honda said they were leaving. But it came across a less about Honda saying we can't, but rather that they wanted out completely. Additionally as mentioned above, the team struggled to develop the car during 2009 due to lack of funds.
If Honda had stayed, they would have still had the good double diffuser car. The RA809E engine... who knows. At a minimum it likely would have been better than 2008 and clearly would have integrated into the car better than the Mercedes unit. So it may be a wash or not much of a hindrance? They likely would have had a budget to develop the car mid-season much more than they did as Brawn. So I wouldn't beat against a Honda 2009 championships in an alternative universe.
Richard