Who's to blame for Honda's misery?

[Malbec]

#1 Honda #2 Honda #3 Honda....

Their engines are possessed by a god, everything else should be left to the brits. Harvey Postwaite developed a marvelous car, but he died in 99 and Honda never used it. David Richards got them on the right track (finally) but the eastern-CEO's fired him because he made Button mad 2004. Ever since the team has been in chaos.

Ultimately I think you're right, if Honda had kept the RA-99 they'd have done better. Sadly Postlethwaite might not have had such an early heart attack if he hadn't had to be making a case for keeping HRD going as well as developing the car either.

David Richards wasn't sacked over Buttongate, it was clear to everyone including Honda that the problem lay with Jensons manager and father, the former being practically a fraudster who lied to Williams, Jenson and BAR to secure what he felt was a more lucrative contract. Honda were in fact quite pleased with how Richards handled the situation although the outcome apparently wasn't in doubt when the supposed loopholes allowing Button to sign for Williams turned out to be complete fantasy (something Richards and Honda knew but the rest of the world didn't until the CRB meetings).

They were annoyed at Richards getting too big for his boots, signing the team up to agreements such as the testing limit without even consulting Honda. As someone at Honda said, who did he think paid for both his salary and the team budget?

Whilst Fry is to put it politely a little odd I think the main problem is that they haven't really had a single figure dominate the technical aspect which is something they've now rectified with hiring Brawn.

[jens]

No-one has mentioned Shuhei Nakamoto yet as one factor. Honda made a step back after Richards was replaced with Fry, but replacing Willis with Nakamoto resulted in an enormous step backwards as 2007 proved.

F1 team is too complex to just put blame on one person. Hiring just Brawn doesn't change anything. Situation may get better if hiring Brawn leads to other massive changes, but haven't noticed that much has happened in Honda during the last few months.

F1 proves once again, how important experience is. It looks like Ferrari, McLaren, Renault (former Benetton) and privateer Williams - four of the most experienced teams - seem to be in decent form so far this year. Red Bull and Honda need a lot more than just one star name (Newey and Brawn respectively) - they need the whole F1 organisation to operate like a clockwork and that's the area, where "old teams" are more 'proficient'.

During the last 20 years only five teams have won more than one race! Besides the mentioned Top4 also Jordan, who was also operating efficiently as long as they didn't lack of cash (what a shame a well-funded Team Jordan is missing on the grid, they may add some spice). Even BMW-Sauber (approximately 15 years of experience) is now proving, how hard it is to make it to the highest level in F1 although their team quite clearly structurally operates better than Honda's.

It looks like an important difference whether a team has existed for 30 or for 5 years. I somehow doubt that Honda ever (okay, that word is overexaggeration, let's say the next 10 years) will challenge for the title despite having Brawn. I'm afraid the corporate influences are harder to disappear than one might think and that might lead even into gascoynesque ending - after a couple of season Brawn and Honda part ways in disappointment after having not experienced much success.

[Nikki Katz]

I just think that there's a quality control check somewhere that isn't happening. This seems to be to do with their wind tunnel, which wasn't working properly. Personally I'm not convinced that it's even fixed yet, as in testing so far they've been even worse than last year.

[Malbec]

F1 team is too complex to just put blame on one person. Hiring just Brawn doesn't change anything. Situation may get better if hiring Brawn leads to other massive changes, but haven't noticed that much has happened in Honda during the last few months.

You wouldn't notice the difference from the outside.

I see people like Brawn and Gascoyne as very highly specialised in-house management consultants, not designers. Brawn himself recognises that he is out of touch with the cutting edge of modern car design. What he does is put in place a management structure that allows quick communication and decision making and prioritises certain development fields. That in itself pushes development forward especially in a complex team where R/D is done at two sites.

The same was true of Willis and Richards, the sudden step forward taken by the team over 2003/2004 was due to a management restructuring within the company that allowed departments to communicate better. Willis was more hands on than Brawn is in the technical side though.

[Roamy]

look at reality
1. pollock was strapped with that usless adrian reynard and his engineers
2. As soon a he ridded himself of them he moved right away to fix the car. Based on all the hard work of the engineers and drivers Honda advanced. Then the Prix came in and tried to ride the wave of credit. Bullsh!t the Prix destroyed what they had finally built. How you will see Brawn will take some time to get the car right same as it would have been impossible for the Prix to fix the car in the time he claims.
Lastly had Button and JV continued to work together the team would be much further ahead.