How Not to Run a Formula One Team: by Honda

[Captain Hammer]

Okay, so with Jenson Button's win in Hungary and Rubens Barrichello's podium at Silverstone, Honda are safe from being nominated as a reject team. But the 'Earth Dreams' concept certainly does deserve to be included.

Let's wind the clock back to August 6th, 2006. The place is a four-kilometre ribbon of tarmac near Budapest that we know as the Hungaroring, and the man of the moment is Jenson Alexnder Lyons Button. As previously mentioned, he has just won his first Grand Prix in one hundred and thirteen starts, not only getting rid of the proverbial monkey from his back, but also relieving himself of the title of the driver with the most starts and zero wins. It's true that Button's victory was a combination of luck - he had, after all, start fourteenth after an engine change - and an audacious pit strategy in staying out under the safety car. But what is important to consider is that Honda were abandoning their assciaion with the Lucky Strike brand at the end of the season, and Button's win combined with his performance in the 2004 championship where he finished third overall behind only the Ferraris meant that the Honda F1 Racing Team was the hot ticket for any prospectve sponsor looking to enter the sport. The team was established and making promises whilst stil being relatively young (discounting BAR's ownership, of course). In short, Honda should have gone into 2007 looking ver strong indeed.

Of course, the end result was something else entirely. February 26th, 2007 rolled around and Honda unveiled what would go down as one of the worst cars in the sport's history. Designed by Shuhei Nakamoto - who replaced the infinitely more talented Geoff Wills on Honda's orders - Button and Barrichello would have to contend with a car that suffered too much drag when downforce was applied, but would understeer without it among a multitude of problems. Explanations were given, such as the team's wind tunnel being improperly calibrated, but the problems would persist with the RA107's successor, the RA108, also penned by Nakamoto. Button would eventually describe driving the thing as going into a corner with him having no idea as to what would happen next. It was clear by now that Nakamoto was out of his depth; Honda mechanics even said as much on race weekends. Not even the presence of Ross Brawn could help the team, though he very quickly suggested abandoning the RA108 in favour of developing the 2009 contender, something which weall know has paid dividends rather gratuitously. Then, on December 5th, 2008, the inveitable: Honda withdrew (Nakamoto having quietly jumped ship four days previously), citing the global financial situation as being the cause of their decision. The lack of results after so much promise in 2006 no doubt played its part.

But was the sub-prime mortgate crisis and its global effects little more than an excuse used by Honda to withdraw? Was there something bigger going on, something which had killed the team much, much earlier and left it drifting in a zombified, somnambulist state for years?

The answer, quite simply, is yes.

When the RA107 was unveiled before the world's press, a lot of attention was given to its livery. Aside from the obligatory Honda and Bridgestone logos and a website splashed across the back spoiler, the Honda RA107 was completely sponsor-free. In it place was a concept called 'Earth Dreams', a pro-environemental campaign that Honda citied as having stemmed from the mission statement of the compnay's founder. Honda wanted to raise awareness of green issues the world over, choosing one of the least environmentally-friendly platforms to do it on; a case of good in theory, but very flawed in execution. And in spite of this, Honda did actually contribute to their environmental cause. The car was so slow, puttering around in last place, or parked by the side of the circuit so often that arguably Honda did lower the carbon emmissions of Formula One, just not in the way they had originally intended. The only thing they managed to raise awareness of was which one of their drivers had just retired because the RA107's high point was a large number on the rear wing designed to make it easier to pick one from the other, a tradition carried on by the RA108. But while Honda managed to embarrass both themselves and their drivers, Earth Dreams brought with it much larger problems.

The fact of the matter is that Formula One is a very expensive sport, and sponsorship money forms a significant enough proportion of the budget that without corporate backing, a team is very much up the proverbial creek. The RA107's myearthdream.com and RA108's Earth Dreams liveries failed to provide exactly that: money. Honda has supposedly arranged a licencing agreement with companies whereby they could use the image of Honda and the RA107 in their advertising to promote environmental causes. The team clearly saw themselves as the spear-head of a green campaign, but in two years of running the liveries, the only time the writer of this article can recall seeing the image used was in the advertisements for Honda road cars. And even then, the image flashed by very quickly. The short version is this: Honda were getting next-to-no money, though for a small fee fans could have their name on Button's or Barrichello's car in very tiny writing. And without money, Honda had become a time-bomb that would blow up; it was not a question of if it would, but when. The parent company would keep pouring money in, but without results, they would soon lose their faith and their patience. Mercifcully, they pulled the plug, with the reason being that the global economic situation meant that their Formula One project would have to be shelved.

Honda had essentially painted themselves into a corner. From the moment they introduced the Earth Dreams concept, they were committed to it until the day they withdrew. An environmentally-conscious philosophy had been the mainstay of the founder Soichiro Honda, yes, but if ever the Honda F1 Racing Team were to find a new coporate backer and end the Earth Dreams campaign, then all their work in promoting the environment would have amounted to nothing more than a few hollow words said to cover upthe fact that they were never able to find a sponsor to begin with. Earth Dreams was the nail in the coffin of Honda's Formula One ambitions.

But at the end of the day, there is still one question that remains; a question that may never actually be answered: why? At the end of 2006, Honda was a sponsor's dream: they had the experience, the personnel and the motivation to continue what should have been the beginning of a high point in the company's history. But as the New Year came about, Honda were having trouble finding someone willing to have their name and image on the side of the RA107. Was there trouble in the rank and file at Brackley? Was Honda's misguided management-by-committee style taking its toll? Or was there something else, something deeper and darker still that meant Honda was already in trouble?

We may never really know for sure. In fact, we probably won't. Between Honda's mis-management, Nakamoto's ineptitude as a designer and the unspoken hypocracy of the Earth Dreams concept, the team was in such trouble that to answer the question would only complicate matters. Fortunately, the eleventh-hour save in the shape of Ross Brawn's mangement buy-out has meant that the Team Formerly Known as Honda F1 has been reincarnated from a Greek tragedy into an epic poem.

[jonnyeol]

It goes to show - Teams need to be run by people who know what they're doing, like Ross Brawn and Nick Fry. Car manufacturer boardrooms shouldn't get involved (Toyota have repeatedly failed to get to the top of the sport and excessive influence from Japan could be a reason). Let's hope Richard Branson is too busy trying to get an aeroplane into space powered on chip fat to exert too much influence over the team. They need his money, but they're perfectly capable of doing everything else themselves.

[RejectSteve]

CaptainHammer, that should be in the Reject Centrale Submitted Articles section. Very well written with facts, much in the Arrows-TWR collapse that is already posted there.

It goes to show - Teams need to be run by people who know what they're doing, like Ross Brawn and Nick Fry.

Nick Fry spelled the doom of Honda after clashing with Dave Richards and ousting the Prodrive operator. The 2004 season for BAR, the Honda BTCC efforts, and the Subaru World Rally Team benefitted from Dave Richards' involvement. Richards was at Benetton in the late 90's when they still put together the occassional decent result after loosing most of the top personnel to retirement or Ferrari. Nick Fry's only contribution to Honda was publicocrap.

[Captain Hammer]

CaptainHammer, that should be in the Reject Centrale Submitted Articles section. Very well written with facts, much in the Arrows-TWR collapse that is already posted there.

Thanks. I'll have a shot at re-writing it and submitting it for review.

[Captain Hammer]

Pardon the double-post, but I re-wrote it and tried submitting it. However, I got an e-mail back informing me that the address didn't exist. I guess it just didn't go back up online when the angry Force India fan struck.

[UberOwnage]

I don't think Nakamoto was solely to blame, Nakamoto was the technical director, not the designer of the Honda car that ran in 2007 and 2008. Loic Bigois was drafted in, but the damage was already done.

I think Nick Fry deserves the guillotine for what he has done. After ousting Dave Richards, who was a racing man through and through, they had a lucky 2006 then the REAL Fry-led Honda team showed up for 2007. Sure he got one thing right: signing Ross Brawn, and Rubens gave them a boost by his third in Silverstone, but everything else was two years of mistakes.

He even destroyed Super Aguri. The guy was so humiliated by Aguri Suzuki doing a better job than him he's willing to wreck his team. He's lucky Ross gave him a job.

With what Ross has done, Brawn deserves all the credit.

[Captain Hammer]

Comment deleted

You were doing really well up until this bit. Then any and all credibility you had shrunk vanished.

[CarlosFerreira]

I second the opinion this should go straight to reject central. Personally, I believe it's a very good analysis of how the business case really messed up the sport part.

As for Fry, I suppose history will have to judge him. I have a bad impression of his contribution, but he seems to have made a right call when he got Brawn and now he's much more efficient behind the scenes. Maybe Japan just messed him up with the Committee leadership ideas.