COOPER: Dreams Brought Down to Earth

Formula 1

COOPER: Dreams Brought Down to Earth

The hard truths behind Honda’s withdrawal from Formula 1.

Adam Cooper | http://www.speedtv.com | Posted December 05, 2008 Balen, Belgium

Was Honda's "earthdream" program a sign of commercial strength or weakness? (LAT photo)

It’s hard to believe that a month has already passed since that amazing World Championship showdown in Brazil. It’s been a quiet November for me, and after the crazy schedule of the last part of the season – Singapore, Japan, China and Brazil with all the time changing and jet lag it involved – it’s been good to spend some time at home and remind my wife and four-year old daughter what I look like. In fact I haven’t strayed more than a few miles from my home for the entire month, so it really has been a case of chilling out.

It’s also been an opportunity to catch up on what is going on the real world. With all that traveling and hanging around at circuits you sometimes lose track of what’s going on in the news. It’s not been particularly encouraging recently, with all the economic woe and of course last week’s terrible tragedies in Mumbai, India.

That really resonated with me because in February I spent a few days in the city for the Force India launch, and stayed in the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, the wonderful old building that has become so familiar to millions round the world through those harrowing TV images. In fact my room, on the same corridor as the Presidential Suite suite when Bill Clinton stayed not so long ago, was on the side the cameras showed.

Also there that week were key folk from the team, including Giancarlo Fisichella, Adrian Sutil and Tonio Liuzzi, and we all had an enjoyable stay in this five-star oasis of calm (for once I wasn’t spending my own money) within one of the world’s busiest and most colorful cities. It’s hard to imagine that people who served us in the restaurants and bars became caught up in such terrible events. Things like that put the world of motorsport into perspective, and arguments about rules and finances that always dominate F1 suddenly seem trivial.

It’s been a busy month for one reason or another, with Alonso confirmed at Renault, Force India ditching Ferrari to become a partner of McLaren Mercedes, the Canadian GP disappearing, and the Senna name returning to F1 via Bruno, nephew of Ayrton.

But all of that has of course been trumped by this week’s stunning news of Honda’s immediate withdrawal from F1. None of us saw that coming – but having said that, I did have a moment of enlightenment about 10 days ago. Scrolling through the UK business news on the internet, I came across a story explaining that Honda was closing its British factory in January and February in response to low demand. Thousands of employees were going to lose money, and there was talk of some never returning to work.

That set me thinking. I’ve always thought that Honda was in reasonably good health, and the indications from F1 team boss Nick Fry have always suggested that money was not a problem. But evidently it was, and when the manufacturer had to make cutbacks, F1 was at the top of the list.

In terms of the corporate big picture, an F1 team budget is not that massive, even for a moderately sized company like Honda. But the problem is that the very high profile that justifies F1 as a marketing expense becomes a handicap at times like these. To Honda shareholders and assembly line workers who fear for their jobs, such expenditure suddenly looks very frivolous. It’s no surprise, therefore, that F1 came in the firing line when the board looked for ways to calm the situation.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Adam Cooper

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