I believe by now everyone should have already know the results of the first F1 race in the 2009 season. Just some thoughts - did Ross Brawn just proved that a plump man who likes to eat bananas can put together a winning F1 team in one year, better than Honda can in 3 years, despite its immense resources?
So did Honda made a wrong decision to sell off Honda F1 team to Ross Brawn?
Mike Gascoyne, during his tenure at Toyota F1 have once vented out his frustration on the poor performance of Toyota F1 by blaming it on the bureaucratic and hierarchial organizational structure of Japanese companies. In Formula One, critical decisions need to be made fast but the way Toyota is structured meant that many critical decisions have to be relayed back to its corporate head office in Japan, where it will go through a series of consensus seeking and paper sign-off. By the time a decision is made, their competitors have already moved on to something else. Needless to say, the Japanese bosses at Toyota didn't took Mike's comments very well and he was unceremoniously removed from the team.
But Toyota is not alone, I believe the same thing happened in Honda F1 prior to Ross Brawn's entry. Despite their immense financial resources, neither Honda and Toyota have been able to "buy" any significant race results. Privateer teams like Williams-Toyota, operating at less than a quarter of the factory backed team's budget, have until 2007, achieved better results on a shoe string budget.
This is however is not exactly a criticism towards Japanese company management, but rather it is a case of a different type game requiring a different game plan. Everyone acknowledges the lead of Japanese manufacturers in the game of building and selling cars. Racing however, is an entirely different matter.
Formula One is ran by people who know eat, drink, sleep and dream F1. People like Frank Williams, Peter Sauber, Ron Dennis. Not a committee of managers or some CEO in suit and tie.
One has to wonder if the bosses at Honda Motor Co. are kicking themselves in the butt for selling Honda F1 to Ross Brawn. After-all, much of the early work on the BGP 001 was done with Honda's resources. But they can't claim any credit now - the car is now powered by a Mercedes-Benz engine. And Honda F1 has almost no race victory results to show off prior to Ross Brawn coming onboard.
So Honda has just been proven that a greying hair plump man who eats a bit too much bananas can do a better job than the entire Honda Motor Co.'s massive financial and engineering resources was able to. If Honda wishes to buy back the team then they will have to outbid British billionaire Sir Richard Branson of Virgin Group. Branson has just announced Virgin's interest to purchase the team in the near future.
One of Honda's marketing tagline for the factory backed motorsports activities in the region is "Reasons to Exist," implying that motorsports is at the core of Honda's brand values. But Ross Brawn has just implied that this is nothing more than just a marketing tagline. Private F1 teams and individuals like Ross Brawn are the real "reasons to exist" guys in motorsports. This is the only life they knew.
Yes Honda might built good sports oriented cars and bikes, but when it comes down to the business and discipline of managing a racing team - it is much better for Honda to just remain as an engine supplier.
Also, I wonder if its just coincidental that the poor performance of both McLaren and Ferrari comes after the departure of former team principals Ron Dennis and Jean Todt (and Technical Director Ross Brawn), the very men who built the teams up from the mess they were previously in.
A team is only as good as its people. The former Ferrari dream team - "second driver" Rubens Barichello, Technical Director Ross Brawn, Team Principal Jean Todt and "lead driver" Michael Schumacher.
Toyota is finally seeing some results after 7 years of forgettable race seasons. But first they need to resolve the controversy surrounding their "active rear wing." Toyota might be slow to change, but they have the money. Lots of it. Despite the current economic gloom Toyota have more than enough assets and cash reserve to buy a many more car companies if it wants to. They don't call it the "Bank of Toyota" for nothing. If you keep throwing money to a problem, eventually you are bound to see some results. I guess we will be watching for long Toyota is willing to throw money into F1. Some say the Big T is like a giant oil supertanker ship, huge and slow to change its course. But when it does change course you better get out of its way because it is going to mow down anything in its path.
Related link :
Honda Bids Farewell to F1
2 comments:
Very rightly said- Different game plan is indeed required. I think the motorsports division of all major car companies should have a different plan of action. They must grant full powers to the team managers and bosses who oversee operations during races.
Ah...but like in the case of Honda car companies own the team, which means they are the ones funding this expensive game. So it has to be run by someone from the company.
Mercedes have a very good partnership with Mclaren, let the racing guys do the racing and team management part. The corporate and factory backed engineers keep to the marketing and manufacturing. But it's not as easy as it sounds and managing an equal partnership of such scale is very complicated and takes a lot of good negotiation and business acumen.
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