2015 FORMULA 1 BAHRAIN GRAND PRIX

[MR2 Fan]

I'd say it helps them in the way that they might actually be able to get the engine to work. In all the 'yay Honda and mclaren back together' excitement most people failed to realize that Honda in the 80's didn't act like a japanese company whereas 30 years on Honda of today very much is. And to put it bluntly a japanese company with japanese culture is the last thing you want in an F1 team.

can you please elaborate? I'm not disagreeing, just wondering about your viewpoint

[Blerpa]

I'm countering all these negative opinions with a bet... by the end of the year McLaren-Honda's outlook will be better than RedBull and Toro Rosso Renault.

[IMOA]

can you please elaborate? I'm not disagreeing, just wondering about your viewpoint

Honda of the 80's was still the Honda Sochiro built, an absolute maverick by japanese standards. It was a company built from the ground up by the drive and ingenuity of an individual who built genuinely ground braking cars and bikes and had the balls to tell the government to fuck off when they were told to stop making cars - this is a much bigger deal than people realise.

Sochiro and his legacy is long gone, Honda of today has drifted back to being a very japanese company. That means strict hierarchy, suppression of individual ideas and inspiration, group think, tortured decision making processes, an inability to confront issues with honesty and plain speaking and an obsession with replicating what was done rather than looking for ways how it should be done.

Formula 1 is an insanely fast faced technical environment where innovation needs to be delivered at a blistering pace just to hang on to the pack. Sochiro's Honda was equiped to do this, today's Honda is a mile away.

[MR2 Fan]

fair enough

[Mr Wonder]

Honda of the 80's was still the Honda Sochiro built, an absolute maverick by japanese standards. It was a company built from the ground up by the drive and ingenuity of an individual who built genuinely ground braking cars and bikes and had the balls to tell the government to fuck off when they were told to stop making cars - this is a much bigger deal than people realise.

Sochiro and his legacy is long gone, Honda of today has drifted back to being a very japanese company. That means strict hierarchy, suppression of individual ideas and inspiration, group think, tortured decision making processes, an inability to confront issues with honesty and plain speaking and an obsession with replicating what was done rather than looking for ways how it should be done.

Formula 1 is an insanely fast faced technical environment where innovation needs to be delivered at a blistering pace just to hang on to the pack. Sochiro's Honda was equiped to do this, today's Honda is a mile away.

This is exactly the problem at the moment. While the car isn't quite where they wanted it in terms of aero, the entire Honda package is letting them down big time. McLaren are having to design engine parts because Honda can't, or won't. It's utterly ridiculous and a lot of people are very unhappy with the arrangement.

[Alan P]

I remember Ross Brawn saying working with Honda was an exercise in frustration with anyone remotely close to the F1 project absolutely refusing to make any decisions and passing it up the chain until it got to someone Ross hardly knew and was four or five steps removed from the F1 project in a process that took weeks rather than hours or days.

[Yobbo NZ]

Sounds a bit like the Toyota F1 team all over again.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Honda most certainly lost its way as demonstrated by their eventual exit of F-1 when spooked by global slow down. They probably could've finally won the championship, but the turn of events also proven that they weren't really focused on racing, but their financial bottomline.

Will the new CEO be different? I wonder what was the motivation for Honda when Honda decided to come back.

Anyway, at the moment, it's really difficult to see who's more messed up. Honda obviously has issues they need to deal with, but it's not like McLaren had been running near the front with Mercedes engines lately. Expecting the team to suddenly dominate is perhaps asking too much..., but Alonso probably won't have that many years left to wait. Feel sorry for the guy.