Quote Originally Posted by jens
Had one team gone on to being successful instead of the other. For instance, had it been BAR-Honda (or Toyota) instead of Renault, who went on to build championship winning cars in mid-noughties, what would it have done to the careers of Button (Trulli) or Alonso? Heidfeld is another popular case - no top cars, no wins, but...
Lets play with that one a little.

What if Honda had not cancelled their F1 project in '99? Harvey Postlethwaite may not have died and the core of his design team who then were mostly snapped up at Renault would have stayed at Honda.

Renault probably wouldn't have done as well without the engineering talent they got from the cancelled Honda project and might not have been in a position to win championships.

How much better would Honda have done than BAR? I know that BAR got their hands on the Dallara Honda prototype and that it did a lot better than their '99 car on the test rig.

So, what would the implications have been? BAR wouldn't have had a works engine deal, Renault would have lost out and Honda would have been the 12th team so Toyota would have found it difficult to enter F1 (if there was a 12 team limit back then)....