On this day 5 years ago: The tragedy of Fernando Alonso's radio outburst in Honda's home race at Suzuka Circuit

[siskue2005]

No, it is clearly documented. Andretti team wanted Alonso in this years' race and Honda blocked that move and Alonso could nt get the seat. They gave that seat to some nobody

They allowed him to race in 2017 because he already was a McLaren Honda driver on that year, so they are obliged to give a seat for their driver when Mclaren put up a Indy car with Andretti and Honda engines

Alonso has crashed on multiple Indy 500 runs prior to the race and didn't even make the cut in qualifying last year.

Sato has won it twice since Alonso started attempting the 500. Alonso hitched a Lemans win with Toyota and is now back with Renault. Doubt he will be powered by Honda anytime soon.

Alonso didnt even qualify last year in indy because he was running a Chevrolet engine, Sato won it coz he has had more oppurtunity with Hinda engines
But Toyota connection is also possible

[coaster]

When HRC factory team is strong in motogp, the f1 program always suffers.
I cannot diminish Hondas HRC factory team achievments, i am partial and a total Honda fan when it comes to bikes.

[nacho]

What about the Honda V5 in RC211V?

[Jolle]

i do remember the joint championships of Wayne Gardner and Nelson Piquet it '97 and Eddie Lawson and Prost in '89,

I think the dominant years of 86-91 had more to do with just getting the basics right at the right time. During the latter days of the turbo's, Ferrari and Honda were the only to real competitors designing new engines. The Porsche TAG still were the original engines. from 83, BMW didn't do anything with their original 82 design anymore, etc. As soon when Renault upped the ante with pneumatics etc, Honda left.

[JordanMugen]

What about the Honda V5 in RC211V?

Outlawed yet again by a ridiculous maximum 4 cylinder rule in MotoGP.



V5 and V6 bikes in MotoGP would be neat! (The fuel capacity limits might be a problem mind you...)

[JordanMugen]

The funny thing about all this is Alonso got the focus, instead of Honda because of manufacturing probably the worst F1 engine I´ve ever seen. There have been poor engines in F1, but one wich lacks so much perfomance and at the same time so much reliability? I can´t remember any in past 20-30 years

The Posche 3512 V12 was little better, indeed the Porsche 3512 has a 100% record for DNF and DNQ, which is far worse than the Honda RA615H! Also poor were the Subaru 1235 flat-12, and the Ford-Cosworth 1.5 TEC twin-turbo V6 (the Ford-Cosworth didn't even arrive on time to go racing and had to be substituted for a HART engine)...

The Honda RA615H wasn't ready, yet McLaren wanted it early anyway and placed unreasonable packaging demands on it... What other outcomes would you expect than failure!?

Besides if you think "failure is not OK" then you don't understand Honda. Failure is perfectly OK for Honda, be it oval-piston V4 engines in GP bikes, air-cooled V8s with a magnesium chassis in GP cars, development is a learning process and failure is perfectly acceptable (albeit occasionally tragic).

This is Why we Race: Over 50 years of Success and Failure:

[Andres125sx]

The funny thing about all this is Alonso got the focus, instead of Honda because of manufacturing probably the worst F1 engine I´ve ever seen. There have been poor engines in F1, but one wich lacks so much perfomance and at the same time so much reliability? I can´t remember any in past 20-30 years

https://i.redd.it/so188ko6o9sz.png

The Posche 3512 V12 was little better, indeed the Porsche 3512 has a 100% record for DNF and DNQ, which is far worse than the Honda RA615H! Also poor were the Subaru 1235 flat-12, and the Ford-Cosworth 1.5 TEC twin-turbo V6 (the Ford-Cosworth didn't even arrive on time to go racing and had to be substituted for a HART engine)...

The Honda RA615H wasn't ready, yet McLaren wanted it early anyway and placed unreasonable packaging demands on it... What other outcomes would you expect than failure!?

Besides if you think "failure is not OK" then you don't understand Honda. Failure is perfectly OK for Honda, be it oval-piston V4 engines in GP bikes, air-cooled V8s with a magnesium chassis in GP cars, development is a learning process and failure is perfectly acceptable (albeit occasionally tragic).

This is Why we Race: Over 50 years of Success and Failure:

All of them from the early 90s. But fair enough, correct my statement to "worst F1 engine in last 25 years"

Anycase it doesn´t matter if it´s the worst or 2nd, 3rd or 4th worst, the key point is it was one of the worst engines in decades.

Failures may be ok for a manufacturer to develop their engine, problem comes when they promise some perfomance to the team in 2nd-3rd season, but in 2nd and 3rd season it´s still the slowest and also the less reliable PU on the grid.


It was something to be expected tough. As I said in 2014, Honda was really really brave to enter F1 with such complex PUs and the token restrictions. But that does not change the fact they heavily underperformed, and in F1 anyone underperforming is fired or at least criticized heavily, PU manufacturers, teams, drivers, engineers, strategists... anyone. I see no reason to not criticize that poor Honda

[nacho]

What about the Honda V5 in RC211V?

Outlawed yet again by a ridiculous maximum 4 cylinder rule in MotoGP.



V5 and V6 bikes in MotoGP would be neat! (The fuel capacity limits might be a problem mind you...)

Yeah in the 990cc (early 2000s) there was the Honda V5, Yamaha inline four, Aprilia inline three (Cosworth design), there was the Blata WCM V6 but it never raced and I'm not sure it even ran.

I think the idea with the HRC V5 was that it didn't need balancing shafts and with the 75.5 angle. It also had a counterrotating crank for easier turning, I think all of the bikes now have it.

[coaster]

I hope these rants played no part in the exit decision.

[bigblue]

The funny thing about all this is Alonso got the focus, instead of Honda because of manufacturing probably the worst F1 engine I´ve ever seen. There have been poor engines in F1, but one wich lacks so much perfomance and at the same time so much reliability? I can´t remember any in past 20-30 years

Honda didn´t deliver, actually they were so far from delivering that they´d have been fired in their very first year if changing PU manufacturer was easier in F1

Life W12. Read this if you want a laugh, funnily enough includes this gem :

The long straights of the Hockenheimring brutally exposed the car’s power deficit. It was around 64kph (40mph) slower through the speed traps than any other car. Estimates placed the Life W12’s power output at around 375bhp, around half of that enjoyed by the McLaren-Hondas.

I swear I didn't know that was in there before thinking of the W12.

[notsofast]

Honda: the only engine that has been so reliable that no Honda-powered car incurred an engine penalty this season (according to Sky). How the turntables...

[Sevach]

No, it is clearly documented. Andretti team wanted Alonso in this years' race and Honda blocked that move and Alonso could nt get the seat. They gave that seat to some nobody

They allowed him to race in 2017 because he already was a McLaren Honda driver on that year, so they are obliged to give a seat for their driver when Mclaren put up a Indy car with Andretti and Honda engines

Alonso has crashed on multiple Indy 500 runs prior to the race and didn't even make the cut in qualifying last year.

Sato has won it twice since Alonso started attempting the 500. Alonso hitched a Lemans win with Toyota and is now back with Renault. Doubt he will be powered by Honda anytime soon.

Even though he was a happy and smiling person during that 2017 weekend, he still found time to take a dig at Honda when his car had an oil leak leading to an engine change prior to the start of the race.
When asked wether that worried him or he was tense about it, he said "no i've gotten used to this lately".

[ispano6]

No, it is clearly documented. Andretti team wanted Alonso in this years' race and Honda blocked that move and Alonso could nt get the seat. They gave that seat to some nobody

They allowed him to race in 2017 because he already was a McLaren Honda driver on that year, so they are obliged to give a seat for their driver when Mclaren put up a Indy car with Andretti and Honda engines

Alonso has crashed on multiple Indy 500 runs prior to the race and didn't even make the cut in qualifying last year.

Sato has won it twice since Alonso started attempting the 500. Alonso hitched a Lemans win with Toyota and is now back with Renault. Doubt he will be powered by Honda anytime soon.

Even though he was a happy and smiling person during that 2017 weekend, he still found time to take a dig at Honda when his car had an oil leak leading to an engine change prior to the start of the race.
When asked wether that worried him or he was tense about it, he said "no i've gotten used to this lately".

Yeah and after they ditched the Honda engines the mediocrity of McLaren became apparent such that the toxic crew were let go.

[Andres125sx]

Alonso has crashed on multiple Indy 500 runs prior to the race and didn't even make the cut in qualifying last year.

Sato has won it twice since Alonso started attempting the 500. Alonso hitched a Lemans win with Toyota and is now back with Renault. Doubt he will be powered by Honda anytime soon.

Even though he was a happy and smiling person during that 2017 weekend, he still found time to take a dig at Honda when his car had an oil leak leading to an engine change prior to the start of the race.
When asked wether that worried him or he was tense about it, he said "no i've gotten used to this lately".

Yeah and after they ditched the Honda engines the mediocrity of McLaren became apparent such that the toxic crew were let go.

We must have seen different F1 championships. It that I watched, McLaren went from 9th in 2017 with Honda, to 6th in 2018 with Renault despite the integration problems due to the PU change

[Andres125sx]

Honda: the only engine that has been so reliable that no Honda-powered car incurred an engine penalty this season (according to Sky). How the turntables...

And now they leave F1...

IMHO this is proving they were eager to leave F1, but they didn´t want to go with such mediocre results so they´ve waited till their results are not that poor. If not I can´t get how they leave when: 1- they´ve finally won some race. 2- regulations change so they now have a real chance to become really competitive and with cheaper PU