2018 Aston Martin Red Bull Racing - Tag Heuer (Renault)

[makecry]

The best times in F1 have often been with only 1 factory team in Ferrari. Factory teams are highly volatile to motorsport series. They come in, spend money and then disappear leaving the sport worse off. The best series in the world don't have manufacturer teams. F1 in the 80's and 90's, Nascar, V8 supercars, GT3 and the BTCC were or are better because of a lack of official factory teams. Lmp1 is failing because of manufacturers pulling out and look at the manufacturer exit in F1 at the end of the naughties due to the GFC. Factory teams are not what FOM and the FIA should be looking for.

Red Bull are no less committed to F1 now then they have been in the past. Due to it's teams success and sponsorships it has not required to put as much money in to F1 as it did when it bought Jaguar and Minardi however Red Bull still markets the sport with demonstrations unlike many of it's fellow teams in F1. Honda don't have the want or ability to buy out an F1 team and they will be better off focusing on the engine then also having to worry about the whole car.

I disagree. Honda can buy a F1 team if they want to and hence they have the ability to. They have enough money to entirely acquire RedBull Racing but they are not interested.

[carisi2k]

They could acquire red bull racing but at what cost to the company. Being an engine supplier is the best long term option to stay in F1 for Honda and a partnership with a current winning team who is close to the top 2 teams in performance is more then they could hope for.

[makecry]

They could acquire red bull racing but at what cost to the company. Being an engine supplier is the best long term option to stay in F1 for Honda and a partnership with a current winning team who is close to the top 2 teams in performance is more then they could hope for.

I dont disagree that being an engine supplier is the best for them but you said that they dont have the want or ability and that is not true. They dont have the want but they have the ability to buy any team they want IF that particular team is up for sale.

[muramasa]

Honda have the want but do not have the ability to run an F1 team. Upon returning to F1 Honda said multiple times that they realized that you have to continue F1 no matter what, they have to be able to cope with another Lehman level economic shock, and for that running a team is not an option. What they learned from 00s is that 1.quitting F1 was mistake, 2.running team by themselves was mistake because that's the cause of #1. Anyone can see this if you search for Honda's marketing structure and revenue structure and how its profit has reacted to the 2008 economy slump, and how all these compare to others. Honda's share is heavily biased to US and Japan and its main lineup is budget cars which have thin profit margin, hence easily affected by car sales and less flexible/resilient.

[Talisman]

Honda have the want but do not have the ability to run an F1 team. Upon returning to F1 Honda said multiple times that they realized that you have to continue F1 no matter what, they have to be able to cope with another Lehman level economic shock, and for that running a team is not an option. What they learned from 00s is that 1.quitting F1 was mistake, 2.running team by themselves was mistake because that's the cause of #1. Anyone can see this if you search for Honda's marketing structure and revenue structure and how its profit has reacted to the 2008 economy slump, and how all these compare to others. Honda's share is heavily biased to US and Japan and its main lineup is budget cars which have thin profit margin, hence easily affected by car sales and less flexible/resilient.

What you are saying here makes no sense.

Financially being an engine supplier only makes no sense except for one thing, you can pull out of the sport at short notice with little penalty. Otherwise it’s a lose lose situation. You cannot possibly make back the money you spend on developing the engine by supplying it to customers so it’s expensive. Any publicity is diluted and shared with the chassis maker. Get it wrong and the publicity turns very negative very quickly as Honda knows too well.

Become a team owner and financially it’s a win win situation. You will get considerable return through prize funding and sponsorship which might mean you need to invest none of your own money overall. You get political clout to shape the future of the sport. You also get more publicity. However the downside is you have to engage in the political side which Honda doesn’t want to do and as they found out in 2008/9 the financial cost of withdrawing part way through a Concorde agreement term is truly eye watering.

Honda may say one thing but their actions are clear. They want to be free to pull out whenever they need to. Hence why they haven’t locked themselves into the sport by buying a team. It’s not a coincidence that they are the only one of the four engine suppliers not to own its own team.

[Big Tea]

But they do not have to 'run' the team. There is a perfectly good management and development system in place now.
All they have to do is cough up the bucks and say to Tost, right. As you were but report to me.
They do not haver to supply one single engineer (other than those they would as engine suppliers) suspension or chassis man they are all there doing the job now.

What they would have to do is make good the shortfall between earnings and running cost, which would probably be covered by Honda's advertising department and some component sponsors not currently in F1 (NGK? Denso? etc)

[godlameroso]

Any publicity is diluted and shared with the chassis maker. Get it wrong and the publicity turns very negative very quickly as Honda knows too well.

Don't confuse McLaren with Red Bull, overall this has a higher possibility of being a fruitful partnership. Honda doesn't need to own either team, supplying them with engines, and using Toro Rosso as the test team and the cost to compete can become distributed among the 3 entities. Winning the championship is still worth a nice chunk of money in this sport. If nothing else they get free engines and don't have to be a Renault customer. If Honda buys Toro Rosso it's unlikely that they'd beat Red Bull, better to have a works partnership with Red Bull which has a higher chance of winning overall in both short and long term.

[Big Tea]

Any publicity is diluted and shared with the chassis maker. Get it wrong and the publicity turns very negative very quickly as Honda knows too well.

Don't confuse McLaren with Red Bull, overall this has a higher possibility of being a fruitful partnership. Honda doesn't need to own either team, supplying them with engines, and using Toro Rosso as the test team and the cost to compete can become distributed among the 3 entities. Winning the championship is still worth a nice chunk of money in this sport. If nothing else they get free engines and don't have to be a Renault customer. If Honda buys Toro Rosso it's unlikely that they'd beat Red Bull, better to have a works partnership with Red Bull which has a higher chance of winning overall in both short and long term.

So why not buy STR and still supply Red Bull?
They can use STR as a development team in the manner it is now, but for their own people and Ideas but still be sure of supplying the main RBR team with well proven Honda badged engines?

As I posted above, Honda do not need to manage STR, just fund the existing management team in the same way Red Bull are.

[Vanja #66]

Completely unrelated to most of previous subjects, and indeed to this (2018) thread, but I have a feeling RBR is the team to be in 2019.

[Talisman]

Any publicity is diluted and shared with the chassis maker. Get it wrong and the publicity turns very negative very quickly as Honda knows too well.

Don't confuse McLaren with Red Bull, overall this has a higher possibility of being a fruitful partnership. Honda doesn't need to own either team, supplying them with engines, and using Toro Rosso as the test team and the cost to compete can become distributed among the 3 entities. Winning the championship is still worth a nice chunk of money in this sport. If nothing else they get free engines and don't have to be a Renault customer. If Honda buys Toro Rosso it's unlikely that they'd beat Red Bull, better to have a works partnership with Red Bull which has a higher chance of winning overall in both short and long term.

That wasn’t my point. A Honda F1 chassis and engine winning would get more positive publicity for Honda than a Red Bull/STR/McLaren Honda winning. That’s the nature of the beast.

BTW I’m not sure why anyone is suggesting Honda buy STR, it’s pretty clear they have no intention of doing so. They’ve discussed that briefly at board level and dismissed it. They are not going to invest heavily yet again into a midfield team in the hope of winning races with it, with Jordan, BAR and McLaren Honda have had plenty of experience of how useless and expensive an endeavour that is.

Edit: I re-read your post and agree with the rest of it.

[Talisman]

Completely unrelated to most of previous subjects, and indeed to this (2018) thread, but I have a feeling RBR is the team to be in 2019.

If they go for Honda I think you might be right...

[basti313]

So why not buy STR and still supply Red Bull?

Why should they? Why not supply STR and RB???
STR will never be a competitive team if you do not dump loads of money. STR has the same problem like Ferrari: They can not hire experienced people from the UK based teams easily as they are in the middle of nowhere in Italy.

They can use STR as a development team in the manner it is now, but for their own people and Ideas but still be sure of supplying the main RBR team with well proven Honda badged engines?

There is no "development team" possibility. You need to bring all technology that brings speed into the top car as quick as possible. And you need race laps, so testing any potentially unreliable spec is nonsense. Honda needs more cars, that is still their biggest problem.

Completely unrelated to most of previous subjects, and indeed to this (2018) thread, but I have a feeling RBR is the team to be in 2019.

If they go for Honda I think you might be right...

At a moment, where Renault looks like catching Ferrari and Merc? While Honda is not showing progress after a good start to the season?

[Talisman]

Honda didn’t introduce an update at Canada?

[Vanja #66]

If they go for Honda I think you might be right...

It's unrelated to engine as well. Next year, rules will require severely redesigned aero on new cars. Aero takes time to develop and teams stuck in 2018 C'ship battle will most likely suffer in early 2019(it happened in 2008-2009 transition and it happened in 2013-2014 transition, as most recent examples). Red Bull ain't gonna be there this year, so they will send all their resources to 2019 project sooner than Ferrari and Mercedes.

[adrianjordan]

Plus, who is the designer with the best track record of adapting to rule changes? Why none other than Adrian Newey...