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Honda Quits F1

Discussion in 'Fred's House of Pancakes' started by SPEEDEAMON, Dec 5, 2008.

  1. SPEEDEAMON

    SPEEDEAMON Professional Car Nut

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    Honda has offically withdrawn from Formula One. The President Takeo Fukui pulled the plug. Coming from a company that has a pretty good vision of the future this is not good news. Its good business sense but they're getting ready to take it in the chin.
    I fear that whether the Big 3 get a "bridge loan" or not the near future may have dire consequences. Unemployed, hungry and angry citizens could go uncontrolled. Things could get really bad next year here in Los Angeles. I pray it doesn't happen. Don't get me wrong. I'm an optimist and not a fortune teller, but we're in a downward spiral into the big black hole. At least we can drive our Prii and get away with little gas.
    Sorry for the negative thoughts, but what do you think?
     
  2. JSH

    JSH Senior Member

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    I don't think that Honda is getting out of F1 because of an impending financial collapse. Honda's F1 program has been a complete failure and is very expensive. It costs Honda ~ 1/2 a billion dollars a year to run a uncompetitive team. (Since reentering F1 in 2005 Honda has only won a single race.)

    F1 is also changing the rules to require spec engines. Many of the manufacturers have threatened to quit F1 over this change and Honda is just the first to actually do it.
     
  3. hyo silver

    hyo silver Awaaaaay

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    As a reformed F1 addict, I'm not really surprised. The costs are insane, out of all proportion to the benefits. Toyota seems to be sticking it out for now, but how long will they put up with Mad Max's circus? Even Ferrari's not too happy, and the field's been slanted in their favour for years.
     
  4. JSH

    JSH Senior Member

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    My understanding is that Honda is going to concentrate on motorcycle racing. For auto racing they will be entering the LeMans endurance series which is much less expensive than F1 for almost as much exposure. It also helps that some classes of LeMans use production based cars. People have a hard time relating a open wheeled car with wings to a civic but can easily relate to a souped up Lexus.
     
  5. eagle33199

    eagle33199 Platinum Member

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    Sure, F1 is fun to watch (mostly for the accidents), but what does it really gain the companies involved? A few hours of advertising? The work and technologies they put into those cars are, from my understanding, extremely advanced and beyond anything they could realistically put into their current consumer offerings. I could be wrong on that, but it seems to make sense, otherwise why would it be so expensive? Plus the teams they have working on those vehicles have to spend so much time and effort tuning them to run properly... much more than you would ever see done for your average consumer's car.
     
  6. Godiva

    Godiva AmeriKan Citizen

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    I don't understand the purpose of racing anymore. It isn't needed to develop cars for sale to the general public. It's mostly for advertising, hype and entertainment. If you're going to trim the budget, racing is a good place to start. Good for Honda. Hope more follow.
     
  7. Motobob

    Motobob Seaside Pearl...

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    If you lived in Europe, you might think different. it is akin to MLB and the NFL, and NASCAR combined...a big sport in the "rest" of the world. Bob
     
  8. SPEEDEAMON

    SPEEDEAMON Professional Car Nut

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    Maybe not right away, but features in todays average consumer cars which we take for granted such as disc brakes, ABS, ASR, fly and shift by wire, electric steering, computer control and info displays, tire pressure monitoring, variable intake valve technology, direct injection fuel control, aerodynamics just to name a few were all developed by Formula One. In fact for 2009 Formula One is going to incorporate KERS and in 2010 high efficiency small displacement engines. So for Honda to pull out is a huge blow to future technology. It was part of their on-going research as well as for Toyota, Ferrari, BMW, Renault and Mercedes.
     
  9. Godiva

    Godiva AmeriKan Citizen

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    Are you saying that without Formula 1 racing none of these innovations would ever have been developed and incorporated into commercial auto production?
     
  10. halpos4

    halpos4 "Taxi"!

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    Pretty much,as a kid i watched Formula 1 and even back then Murray Walker and James Hunt[when he was sober]would talk about the new technologies being incorporated into the cars then and that one day we would see them on production cars,and how right they were,
    When you think about it,Formula 1 is a huge R&D machine.
     
  11. richard schumacher

    richard schumacher shortbus driver

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    The Prius beat them there.

    Is Toyota also pissing away half a billion on F1 every year? Smart car companies will figure out how to do R&D and advertising without building vehicles for conditions utterly unrelated to real-world driving and without dragging hundreds of staff around to races.
     
  12. SPEEDEAMON

    SPEEDEAMON Professional Car Nut

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    Yes and no. All of the aforementioned innovations together with high performance tires, traction control and active suspension and in fact everything to do with engines, suspension and brakes came from Formula 1 and other kinds of automobile racing. Also the motor oil which protects our engines that do not have to be changed for up to 100K miles came from F1 technology.

    However, luxury features were not part of F1 and emission control came from the requirements set forth by law.
    I can safely say that if FIA, the governing body of Formula 1 decided that all F1 cars must run on electric motors, you can bet that we would have battery technology that will leapfrog what's going on today within a couple of years and I feel that that's what's going to happen soon.
    For now, they are deciding on cost-cutting measures which have been accelerated by Honda's demise.
     
  13. Godiva

    Godiva AmeriKan Citizen

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  14. Ogo

    Ogo Prius Owner since 2008

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    Formula 1 is nice public relations and image machine to car producers and not so much R&D machine. Honda will only lose part of its sporty type image and not much else by jumping out of F1 racing.
     
  15. effwitt

    effwitt Paparazzi Magnet

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    Sorry to hear that :)
     
  16. hyo silver

    hyo silver Awaaaaay

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    I'm a better person for it, believe me, and I much prefer a full night's sleep. Now if only I had my own screen for the xbox racing sims, I wouldn't have to share the TV...:)
     
  17. JSH

    JSH Senior Member

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    NASCAR and F1 are totally different types of racing.

    NASCAR is a spec series that mandates the use of 60's technology. No automotive development comes out of NASCAR it is purely marketing.

    F1 is a prototype class. It has few rules and engineers are free to try just about anything to make the car faster. Tons of useful research comes out of this type of racing.

    In motorcycle racing it is very easy to see the transfer of prototype race technology to street use. Current production motorcycles would easily beat pure race motorcycles from 5 years ago. Racing has been key to developing technology, specifically tire technology. It also shows why Honda has decided to focus their racing effort on motorcycle racing.

    MotoGP is the highest level of on-road motorcycle racing. Recently they have been cutting back on the amount of fuel allowed. This has been forcing engineers to develop new technology to make the race bike more fuel efficient while still making competitive power. This has lead to massive research in the electronic controls of the race bike along with things like traction control.

    EDIT: Honda's decision just became crystal clear. FIA just announced Cosworth Engineering as the supplier of spec engines for F1 racing. With this decision, FIA has effectively made F1 a spec series useful only for marketing.
     
  18. AussieOwner

    AussieOwner Active Member

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    I don't know what the ads are like in the US, but here in Australia, all the Honda ads end with a F1 car running across the screen with their "the power of dreams" saying appearing.

    Won't be able to use that any more.
     
  19. hyo silver

    hyo silver Awaaaaay

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    A Cosworth in a Ferrari? That won't go over well. And what's to become of the McLaren/Mercedes partnership?