McLaren-Honda - The return of bizarreness?

If we assume that Perez stays with the team during the McLaren-Honda deal, would McLaren give the ‘Samurai’ tag to Perez over Jenson Button?

We do know that manufacturers can’t tweak much on their components, as they did in yesteryears, but those little tweaks on and off track would cast its effect on the drivers role in the long run.

We are told that Honda is expanding its operations in Mexico. Maybe someone would make a story of it at a later date.

Honda – Bizarre!

Most of their decisions in Formula 1 are quite bizarre. Earlier in the article, we have stated that Honda knows what they are doing, that is because they always seem to have an answer for their bizarre decisions.

Who can forget the Earth livery in 2007-2008 seasons?

Apart from the necessary advertisements on their car, as mandated by the FIA, RA107 featured no other sponsored name. In spite of the fact that this livery suited their corporate image, it was uncalled for in Formula 1. Considering the economic conditions that was presented to us, they continued to use a similar livery in 2008. Understandably, Greenpeace slammed the decision adopted by Honda for their Formula 1 project. An even bizarre fact was the Honda’s decision to quit Formula 1 after the 2008 season, when they spent a fortune for the 2009 season. Honda knew they had a winning project which was under development. Maybe they could have abandoned their corporate image, at least for 2009 season. What was still bemusing was their decision to sell the team for such a low price.

Wonder what went through their minds?

Honda’s decision to drop Jordan for the 2003 season..

Both BAR and Jordan enjoyed equal status with Honda, with Jordan outperforming the British counterparts during the 2001 and 2002 seasons. However, owing to a long term deal, and what was reported as an exclusivity status, Honda decided to drop Jordan and opted to increase their partnership with BAR. Some suggested that Honda had a rolling contract with Jordan, while some speculated that Honda wasn’t satisfied with the financial offerings of Jordan.

It would have been interesting to see the effect of Jordan-Honda on a long term partnership, and what would have happened, if Honda opted to take over Jordan instead of BAR?

The effect of Harvey Postlethwaite:

Harvey Postlethwaite was hired as a technical director and designer of Honda’s ambitious project in 1998-99 season. Over the course of the 1998 season, Honda hired several technical staff to make an entry into Formula 1 as a constructor. A test car was built with the help of Dallara, and was driven by Jos Verstappen. During one such session, Postlethwaite suffered a fatal heart attack, and this brought an end to Honda’s constructor dreams.

Did Honda depend too much on Postlethwaite?

It should be noted that Honda’s previous attempts to enter as a constructor was way back in the 1993-94 seasons. Honda was preparing for such an attempt from the 1992 season, when Honda’s CEO publicly stated their ambitions of a constructor team. They built the RC100 chassis which was unveiled to the media during the early 1993 season, and it had even passed the FIA crash tests. Over the course of the year, Honda built two other chassis, RC101 and RC101B. However, they decided to focus on engine development in CART, and IRL.

We still wonder why a manufacturer would spend so much, yet decide to abandon the project midway, just because of one person?