Honda Withdrawl from F1

[S griffin]

Originally Posted by steve nielsen

not just in 2008, also in 1999 when they had a HRD car in testing designed by Harvey Postlewaite, running a serious testing program with Jos Verstappen and looking very promising in testing , but then decided to only supply engines to BAR after Postlewaite died.

Actually IIRC they changed their mind about running their own team before Harvey died. He seemed to be very disappointed with that decision

As for Renault, I wonder if someone high up in the sport has had a word in their ear, hence why they are willing to supply the two Red Bull teams

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by S griffin

Actually IIRC they changed their mind about running their own team before Harvey died. He seemed to be very disappointed with that decision

As for Renault, I wonder if someone high up in the sport has had a word in their ear, hence why they are willing to supply the two Red Bull teams

Renault are contractually obliged to supply Red Bull if the FIA asked.

Basically the FIAs answer to the potential lack of engines is to force the manufacturers to supply them

[Tourer]

Originally Posted by Moneyseeker

Others disagree, but Honda as just told F1 it is no longer relevant, it's not part of their carbon free future or marketing.

I'm not convinced that Honda has told F1 that at all. Honda is relatively small as car manufacturers go and the now-mandated move to EV road cars has only been put in place in the recent past. I'm prepared to take Honda's announcement at face value and accept that it needs to funnel all available financial and human resources, as well as focus into developing EV road cars.

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

Decouple F1 from road car development in the same way that sailing and horse racing are no longer relevant to their commercial industries.

That is the golden opportunity that sits in front of F1 right now - the current "road car relevant" thought process has led us to these over-complicated, over-heavy, over-large, non-nimble versions of "F1" cars that we have now.

Go to IC engines again, keep KERS maybe but all the rest of the complications can go. We'd end up with cars that could be smaller, back to "proper" F1 weight, agile, nimble and sound fantastic - true entertainment, in the same way that horse competition of various kinds and sailing are.

There is also the benefit that as Hydrogen becomes the "go" rather than the current fad of going EV, the "road relevance" of ICE F1 cars could happen again organically and the sport wouldn't have thrown away its ethos and some core values (as it has now) to achieve that.

[Casper]

I don't know if it is indicative of other markets but in Oz Honda have just lost their oldest dealer (+40 years) and are waiting for the axe to fall on their presence in Oz. I worked in a dealer when Honda took over the distributorship in Oz from the then distributor in the mid 1970's when Honda changed the new car market with the introduction of the Civic And Accord and it is sad to see a once proud brand reduced to just about nothing.

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by Tourer

I'm not convinced that Honda has told F1 that at all. Honda is relatively small as car manufacturers go and the now-mandated move to EV road cars has only been put in place in the recent past. I'm prepared to take Honda's announcement at face value and accept that it needs to funnel all available financial and human resources, as well as focus into developing EV road cars.

How is that different than saying F1 is no longer relevant? Manufacture involvement (particularly for large volume manufactures - while small, this still is Honda) is pretty much about road relevancy.

Now, of course Honda would not be so blunt as this. There is no bad blood between them and F1. I think there are more than one issue here (money is part of it and they can also claim some success). But I think broadly Honda is saying it has grown apart from F1. Here is a key quote from their own press release...

Motorsports activities are in Honda’s DNA, and therefore Honda will continue to be passionate about taking on challenges and striving to become No. 1 in all categories of racing in which Honda participates.

With its “challenging spirit” cultivated through motorsports activities, Honda will take on the new challenge of the future realization of carbon neutrality.

https://global.honda/newsroom/news/2...01002aeng.html

While Honda says they are redirecting resources they are also saying they are not walking away from motorsports. But lets say they do walk away from motorsports. Then that also points at them feeling they don't get much out of sponsoring motorsports in it's current form.

Richard

[Adam43]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

Renault are contractually obliged to supply Red Bull if the FIA asked.

Basically the FIAs answer to the potential lack of engines is to force the manufacturers to supply them

That’s one way to state it.

It was also just a rule to help non works teams and make sure you couldn’t just have a works team. You had to be prepared to supply others.

When there was more than one tyre manufacturer there was a similar thing.

[Casper]

If Renault get the PU gig for the four RB cars Cyril will annonce it as the greatest partnership ever to work in F1.

As an aside I would not be surpised if Honda join FE and that would really give the finger to F1.

Hydrogen for the world's car fleet is further behind than electric due to the immense energy requirements and logistically handling the fuel in the supply chain. That is the one big advantage of electric, most if not all the supply chain is already installed in the urban areas of the world. Hyundai are also pushing Hydrogen as did Honda in the past, are they still doing that?

I don't see what all the angst is about, the status has resumed to normal before Honda joined.

[Adam43]

This is a shame. Honda, sometimes frustrating, sometimes great, but a name I like to see in F1.

It probably tells us something about F1, but probably doesn’t tell us much. Let’s face it we’ve known this manufacturer backed approach isn’t sustainable. We’ve know this for at least a couple of decades now.

[Tourer]

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

How is that different than saying F1 is no longer relevant? Manufacture involvement (particularly for large volume manufactures - while small, this still is Honda) is pretty much about road relevancy.

Because it refers to the cost of F1, not relevancy in general - as do the Honda quotes and release.

F1 has definitely become too expensive for many and it appears that is the case for Honda - that expense could be better used elsewhere in the company, so Honda is out.

Not about relevance but about cost.

[Armco Bender]

The internal combustion engine is dead....the World demands we eat mung beans and ride cycles.

[Tourer]

Originally Posted by Armco Bender

The internal combustion engine is dead....the World demands we eat mung beans and ride cycles.

........or eat grass and ride, um, well, maybe woolly creatures in the sheep paddocks? Sorry Armco, couldn't help myself

Certainly some in the world want the internal combustion engine dead but even if they get their way, it'll take a while and hydrogen might make a big difference to the view if it can be made to work.

Sailing and horse riding are also dead as means of transportation yet a l-o-n-g time after both "died" the use of both in sporting competitions is both worldwide and popular.

Even for road cars, most countries have an existing "park" of vehicles roughly equivalent to 20 years of annual sales or more - so even if the only thing anyone could buy tomorrow is an electric vehicle, it would take at least 20 years for the ICE vehicles to no longer be with us for the masses - & enthusiasts / classic car people would no doubt hang onto them, in the same way that steam enthusiasts still have steam powered cars, engines, trucks, etc in operation now.

[Moneyseeker]

Originally Posted by Adam43

This is a shame. Honda, sometimes frustrating, sometimes great, but a name I like to see in F1.

It probably tells us something about F1, but probably doesn’t tell us much. Let’s face it we’ve known this manufacturer backed approach isn’t sustainable. We’ve know this for at least a couple of decades now.

Apart from Aramaco which is Saudi energy company, and that is all about getting the Saudi GP at the new circuit they are building, no other global brands have come into F1 as sponsor or partner. Chase Carey thought they would beb beating them off with a stick when they moved from BE's one man band to his London office full of sales people, but he admits they aren't there and haven't, which has suprised them.

Strip off the brands that are connected with the driver, investor, shareholder or manufacturer supplier chain and there are few real brand sponsors in F1 anymore.

This is not a critcism, just reality that the return and value is probably no longer there. Sure you may do some B2B and hospitality in the paddock, but increasingly corporates are not allowed to accept hospitality.

We have som financial sector sponsors, for example they are limited on the vaue of anything they can accept, so if you invite them to a black tie event they need to know the cost or value of what you are providing before they can accept it. I know some corporates are not allowing any invites to events, we have had clients that we know well, buy their own places to events we are holding, so they can attend but not as a 'guest'.

This won't be the case in all coutries, but it is getting increasingly so in some sectors, particularly anything finance based who are dripping in compliance. One even declined a bottle of champagne at Christmas.,,,,

[coppice]

We indulge the manufacturers , only one of which** even makes its own car (as well as having being in the sport since the Jurassic era ), we let them influence rules , purely so they can use the sport as a marketing platform and then they just walk on a moment's notice sometimes . They are very welcome to compete but I wouldn't dream of asking them about future rules as(perfectly understandably ) they only have their own interests at stake.

** (I discount Mercedes , Renault and Alfa Romeo as true manufacturer teams as all have been , and almost certainly will be something else . Merc was Brawn was Honda was BAR was Tyrrell and Red Bull started as a Ford funded team )

[Moneyseeker]

Originally Posted by Tourer

........or eat grass and ride, um, well, maybe woolly creatures in the sheep paddocks? Sorry Armco, couldn't help myself

Certainly some in the world want the internal combustion engine dead but even if they get their way, it'll take a while and hydrogen might make a big difference to the view if it can be made to work.

Sailing and horse riding are also dead as means of transportation yet a l-o-n-g time after both "died" the use of both in sporting competitions is both worldwide and popular.

Even for road cars, most countries have an existing "park" of vehicles roughly equivalent to 20 years of annual sales or more - so even if the only thing anyone could buy tomorrow is an electric vehicle, it would take at least 20 years for the ICE vehicles to no longer be with us for the masses - & enthusiasts / classic car people would no doubt hang onto them, in the same way that steam enthusiasts still have steam powered cars, engines, trucks, etc in operation now.

I think it will happen very quickly, even the UK is now proposing to bring a ban on new ICE and hybrid cars in 2030, which means car makers will not have these on sale in meaningful numbers well ahead of that. In turn this means that even if you bought an ICE or Hybrid car the day before the ban, by 2040 the newest ICE or Hybrid car on the road would be 10 years old. There is some sepculation that petrol will not be widely on sale by 2045/50.

Look what happened to the oil company profits during the pandemic, a third of global demand was wiped out and the already low oil price more than halved. That is what the oil business will be like in the 2040's, there will be diesel demand for heavy trucks, as I think that making them full EV or hydrogen is a long way off.

If you have a garage full of Ferraris, I would probably start selling them, the extremely rare cars are almost like art now anyway, on show but never driven. As for classic cars, in 15 yeaes they will probably have the double whammy of being legislated off the road by emmisions and will find it increasingly hard to buy petrol.

I do have a bit of low carbon experience, so can give some personal perspective. I had a self charging hybrid and have just sold it and gone back to a 1.4 turbo stop/start petrol, why? For the type of driving I was going, I was essentially driving heavy petrol car with a small tank as most of the back of the car is taken up with batteries and electric motor.

We have an air source heat pump in our house - VERY expensive to install, 2 or 3 times oil or gas boilers. Quite 'delicate' and prone to going wrong and if incorrectly instaled (quite common I am told and as we found out ourselves) horrendously expensive to run.

[Knowlesy]

I don't see a huge future for motorsport generally (beyond historics), even less so if you go all 'will of the people' and try to make it like it used to be. I can only see a much scaled down sport in ten or twenty years time.

But, you know, that's OK. It had a long run and we enjoyed it.

[P38 in workshop]

I'm really struggling to see F1 being around in five years time.Not that I want to see it die but the perception of it being a bunch of men whizzing round in circles while burning dirty hydrocarbons is becoming more entrenched-partly because of Ms Thunberg and her fellow (non)travellers.The governments that are insisting on a move to alternatives have effectively forced the manufacturers to devote huge resources to producing vehicles that fit the narrative and by doing so have impacted the budgets for what is inevitably a dying technology.I'm not sure that any country will have anything like the infrastructure to run an all electric transport system in the near future as the power stations required should have been under construction by now.If we don't have the capacity to run an electrically based transport system,how could anybody justify using the energy to transport a fleet of racecars and compete.


I have to believe that Honda,as the world's largest producer of internal combustion engines will be doing all it can to remain relevant with some form of combustion based engine.No doubt,as with the Insight,they won't overlook electrical power but at this point they seem to have reached the fairly logical conclusion of this particular sporting endeavour.Could Mugen carry on for a while?Only with something that didn't need a big development budget,I .suspect

[S griffin]

F1 will find a way to survive, it just needs to keep costs down and not rely so much on manufacturers. They are not the be all and end all. Keep it to the enthusiasts

[wnut]

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

How is that different than saying F1 is no longer relevant? Manufacture involvement (particularly for large volume manufactures - while small, this still is Honda) is pretty much about road relevancy.

Now, of course Honda would not be so blunt as this. There is no bad blood between them and F1. I think there are more than one issue here (money is part of it and they can also claim some success). But I think broadly Honda is saying it has grown apart from F1. Here is a key quote from their own press release...
https://global.honda/newsroom/news/2...01002aeng.html

While Honda says they are redirecting resources they are also saying they are not walking away from motorsports. But lets say they do walk away from motorsports. Then that also points at them feeling they don't get much out of sponsoring motorsports in it's current form.

Richard

Looks like cost v return in their marketing effort.
Small hybrid sales percentages and very high cost of F1 promotion, means there are better places to place their ad spend.

Are Honda leaving IndyCar? Probably not, good exposure for realistic cost.

[steve nielsen]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

Hydrogen cars are like nuclear fusion. Always 10 years away.

Both Toyota and Hyundai already sell cars with hydrogen fuel cells

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSxP...ature=emb_logo

[2 litre Touring Car Star]

Originally Posted by BertMk2

But it's not forced? If you want to develop your own engine you can, if you can't or don't want to then fine - use the off the shelf item. I don't see why that's such a bad thing? It makes sense - the championship is then not relying on manfacturers being involved. How committed are Renault and Mercedes? If they bail out in the next few years then where are the engines coming from? It'll be everyone with a Ferrari unit (assuming they could build enough). An independent engine supply just makes sense.

A generic bespoke engine is an answer to a problem that hasn't occurred yet. It diminishes the authenticity of F1.

Manufacturers/teams leaving give the opportunity for others to join.

I read/hear on here and other outlets about reducing costs. Who are you reducing the costs for? You can make people/team not spend their money.

A generic bespoke engine is fine for Euroboss. It won't make a difference in F1. I don't like it in any (intended) open class like the btcc. But obviously there was some concern about attracting competitors. But in F1, this won't be a problem (Or problem for long).

As it stands. I've since found out there's an understanding that if a team can't get an engine deal, then the FIA will oblige Renault to supply them. This is done either through an arrangement with Renault or because Renault are supplying the fewest teams. So effectively Renault are the de facto generic engine. That's fine.

[Peter Mallett]

Originally Posted by 2 litre Touring Car Star

A generic bespoke engine is an answer to a problem that hasn't occurred yet. It diminishes the authenticity of F1.

Utter tosh. Bespoke engines such as the Cosworth, Ferrari, Renault, BMW, Honda etc. made the series what it was. Agreed some were used more than others but there was always variety. And apart from Ferrari, none were linked to a manufacturer programme.

Originally Posted by 2 litre Touring Car Star

Manufacturers/teams leaving give the opportunity for others to join.

Who are these others that want to join and what will they use for power?

Originally Posted by 2 litre Touring Car Star

As it stands. I've since found out there's an understanding that if a team can't get an engine deal, then the FIA will oblige Renault to supply them. This is done either through an arrangement with Renault or because Renault are supplying the fewest teams. So effectively Renault are the de facto generic engine. That's fine.

So you have a spec series? Not exactly the pinnacle of motorsport is it?

[2 litre Touring Car Star]

Originally Posted by Peter Mallett

Utter tosh. Bespoke engines such as the Cosworth, Ferrari, Renault, BMW, Honda etc. made the series what it was. Agreed some were used more than others but there was always variety. And apart from Ferrari, none were linked to a manufacturer programme.

"Generic bespoke" and "bespoke" are different.

If a customer engine is going to be supplied off the initiative of the manufacturer or engine maker, then I'm cool with that. But a "silhouette engine" at the behest of F1 I don't think is the best way.

Originally Posted by Peter Mallett

Who are these others that want to join and what will they use for power?

I was mainly meaning engine manufacturer/suppliers. As it stands, it's not necessarily worthwhile for a new manufacturer to join. But other manufacturers leaving gives the opportunity for others to enter.

If MB had said they were leaving for example. Then instantly the current engines and F1 instantly become more attractive for others than while they're still in F1.

Originally Posted by Peter Mallett

So you have a spec series? Not exactly the pinnacle of motorsport is it?

It's not a spec series. If Renault supply engine to RB because they're asked to do so. Then Renault are effectively playing the role of Ford/Cosworth did in the 60s & 70s.

[Greem]

Originally Posted by 2 litre Touring Car Star

It's not a spec series. If Renault supply engine to RB because they're asked to do so. Then Renault are effectively playing the role of Ford/Cosworth did in the 60s & 70s.

Not really, no. The DFV was an off-the-shelf product that anyone could phone up and order to fit in their own car. Lots of people did. Good business for Cosworth and great marketing value for Ford.

If the FIA direct Renault to supply an engine to RB, that's not quite the same thing, is it?

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by S griffin

F1 will find a way to survive, it just needs to keep costs down and not rely so much on manufacturers. They are not the be all and end all. Keep it to the enthusiasts

Keeping costs down is easier said than done. RBR still managed to spend £237.3m last year which was only some £2m less than in 2018. It's all very well being an enthusiast but enthusiasm alone won't do it without the backing of manufacturers.

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/r...paign=widget-6

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by wnut

Looks like cost v return in their marketing effort.
Small hybrid sales percentages and very high cost of F1 promotion, means there are better places to place their ad spend.

Are Honda leaving IndyCar? Probably not, good exposure for realistic cost.

Honda aren't leaving IndyCar, though the new hybrid engine that was to be introduced next year, will be put back to 2023. This is primarily due to Covid, which has led to manufacturing shutdowns in the production of the KERS units. The Honda IndyCar program is not directly run by Honda but by HPD, Honda Performance Developmemnts and they've just announced a change at the helm, with David Salters becoming the seventh president, succeeding Ted Klaus.