Secrets to the Brawn(Honda)...blowing in the wind.

Hmmm, kinda shuts down the theory that a team on a shoe string budget can make a winning car.

 

Seems like RB was in the right place at the right time.

 

You can start the season with a great car, an obvious advantage. But when you consider all the changes to F1 cars for virtually every race, for Brawn to continue winning, takes a lot more than just a big budget. It takes a Ross Brawn.

Ask Ferrari and McLaren what their big budget has done for them this year.

Also consider, if all teams had a similar budget, whether it be high or low, then anyone with the necessary talent (driver and engineers) can win.

 

well, the car started WAAAAAAAAAAY faster than the others... so maintaining, and developing can be tiny and still win... and yeah, the Bulls are now about even..

 

True enough

BUT I would agree you just need to keep making the incremental changes to a fantastic car. One of the key points for Honda/ Brawn was when Honda stopped developing their '08 and started developing their '09. BMW and a couple of others did this, BUT Honda did it much better, and the five wind tunnel aspect would have been key. Here was Ferrari and McLaren still developing their '08s so they could win the championships. And Honda & Red Bull got the jump!

The big question would be why BMW are doing so appallingly badly ?

 

I agree that a two tiered F1 isn't worthy of the name but how can a team (other than a major automaker) afford to enter the sport?
Over time without new blood F1 will stagnate and suffer.
One possibility is budget caps but that too is not in keeping with the spirit of F1.
Anyone have a viable idea?

 

A budget cap agreed by FOTA, or at least let them have some input in to a amount agreed.
or
Let nature take it's course cream will always rise to the top, if it is allowed to dumbed down as much as Mosley wanted, it would die a death anyway. Mosley was barking up the wrong tree, chasing the top teams out of the sport.

IF Mosley's intention was to get new teams into the sport why is he hell bent on destorying the sport now, thats why you cant trust this guy even if his intentions seemed right.

The new teams are still interested without a cap, as was Prodrive, it was Mosley stopping them in the past because he personally doesn't like folk that speak out about him, but it's ok for him to call them lunatics, and certified half wits, yet he spits his dummy out when even a hint of criticism comes his way. I reckon when he is gone MORE and MORE teams will want to get into the sport.
http://formula-one.speedtv.com/article/f1-campos-on-track-despite-no-budget-cap/

 

Nothing, but then again they got the rear diffuser wrong and can't develop the car due to lack of testing otherwise I'm sure the gap would narrow. Sadly we are all suffering since it is a Brawn steamroller; let's see if Silverstone was a fluke or if Red Bull can consistently match the Brawns. It might be too late.

To think that Brawn developed this car on a shoestring budget is assinine, and it shows how incredibly short sighted Honda is.

 

Beyond that their big budgets allow them a losing season or two. Something that Brawn could most likely not afford.

 

+1

While I agree, "the gap" you allude to is smaller than it's ever been - 2 seconds cover the entire field! This is good stuff [IMHO]

Here's where we disagree - I'm not "suffering" - I'm enjoying the racing, what Ross has done, his apparent "attitude" with potential sponsors, all of it!

Cheers,
Ian

 

Correct.

Its like banging ya head on a brick wall on here.

Some idea from a blog
Prodrive has a terrific record in the sport and, according to David Richards, has the funding for the project from Dar Capital. This is a recently-established British-based investment bank, which is controlled by Kuwait’s Investment Dar. To give you an idea of the scale of the company, not long ago Mercedes-Benz had meetings with Investment Dar about a possible joint venture. Investment Dar has been listed on the Kuwait Stock Exchange since 1999 and has close links with the ruling families of the region, it claims to have 800 prominent and respected individuals and institutions mainly from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar and Oman as its investors. In other words it has money. It also owns Aston Martin, which gives it a good reason to want to be in F1.

Take a look at N Technology. This is not some back street garage operation in Catania, but rather a highly professional organisation that grew out of a merger between Alfa Romeo’s sporting department Alfa Corse; Fiat’s Abarth competition department and Nordauto, an independent team that enjoyed an impressive record of success in European touring car racing. It operates the FIA World Touring Car Championship and the International Formula Master series and I think it is fair to say that it would not have made an entry if it was not 100% certain that it would be accepted by the FIA. Why would the FIA reject such an ally?

Lola. Here is another one. Birrane says that he is underwriting the whole thing himself, but of course he will offset that by finding sponsorship. He has a lot of property in Ireland and Lola is now a very successful company with defence contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Yes, Lola has recruited an entire F1 design team and has everything it takes to enter F1. So why would you choose small fry over Lola?

Then there is Epsilon Euskadi. Take a look at its facilities here http://www.epsiloneuskadi.com/epsilon/menu.aspx?IdSeccionPublica=1&IdMenuPublico=27&language=2 and wonder why this team was not included on the list, particularly when team boss Joan Villadelprat has openly said that he has secured the necessary budget for the next four years. From what I hear much of that is from the government of the Basque Autonomous Community, one of the wealthiest regions of Spain. Why would this team be refused an entry when Manor Grand Prix gets its ticket to F1?

Mosley is the problem with him it's personal, applying logic is not necessarily his best asset.

 

+10000!!!

 

Interesting stuff but until I see the money I always remember what Caspar Gutman said in the Maltese Falcon about the difference between dollars of talk and coin of the realm.

 

Honda knew the car would be a winner. Leaving F1 was being politically correct in the eyes of the BOD.

As for the diffuser, Ross Brawn told all the teams back in 2008 there were loopholes in the rules, he offered to come with language to close the loopholes. The other teams, including Ferrari and McLaren did not take him seriously. So I have no sympathy for the teams that got the diffuser wrong.

 

I find it hard to believe they would spend hundreds of millions of dollars over the years, including hiring Ross Brawn, to walk away because it was "politically correct"; why then continue with other forms of racing?

Only three teams got the diffuser guess "right"-Brawn Toyota and Williams. 2 have yet to win a race. As Wurz said, they spent a ton of money, have a winner and so congrats to them. Let's see what they can do next year.

 

Then you may not understand corporate mentality. Honda sales are down, and the biggest and most visable racing expense was F1. The BOD needed to show some responsibility, even if from afar it seems stupid.

The other forms of Honda racing are not only cheaper, they come closer to paying for themselves than does F1. And in arenas such as the IRL, Honda wins races. That kind of makes it worthwhile to stick around for a while.

F1, not so much.

 

Honda did not know the car would be a winner.

No team *knows* their car will be a winner. They can hope and guess, but there are always surprises by the first race about who is much quicker than testing forbode and who is much slower.

Honda pulled out of F1 at the end of November. The decision was likely made prior to that. The last race was in November, and nobody was out there testing their 09 car. Honda had no benchmark to know where their car would stack up, so to say they knew the car was a winner is just not the case.

It wasn't even necessarily about being politically correct. When times are tough, you cut costs. The racing programs are marketing and R&D expenses. They are not fundamentally necessary to keeping the business open. And in hard times, the first things to get cut are things that don't directly contribute to the bottom line. Things like R&D and marketing.

Furthermore, the serious governance issues that, until recently, have plagued F1 made it impossible to commit to a multi-year future in F1 when that means putting yourself at the whims of Max for that time period. We know this to be true, because after the governance issues were fixed in F1, Mercedes, Renault, Ferrari, Toyota, and BMW were all willing to commit during a very difficult economic time. Therefore, the stumbling block was governance, not budgets.

 

Exactly. Would Honda walk away from a chance at beating Toyota (and everyone else)knowing that their car was a winner? Doubt it.

 

+100!