Honda Announcing New Team Tomorrow

[jjoseph 0]

There will be a press conference at Honda headquarters in Tokyo tomorrow announcing that Aguri Suzuki will enter a Honda second team in next year's Formula 1 World Championship. It is expected that this will confirm the involvement of the Softbank company and that Honda has acquired Menard Engineering Ltd, which owns the old Arrows F1 facility at Leafield.

Robby Gordon, the NASCAR owner-driver, has confirmed to the Winston Salem Journal that Menard, which provides him with his NASCAR engines, is in negotiation with Honda.

Menard Engineering Ltd is in effect, a slimmed-down version of the old TWR company, which was acquired by home-improvements billionaire John Menard in 2003 when Menard and Eddie Cheever, a former TWR driver and longtime associate of former TWR boss Tom Walkinshaw, decided to use the business to improve their efforts in the Indy Racing League.

That relationship did not last long and Menard has since tried to make the company profitable and in August last year announced that it was expanding into military and aerospace activities in alliance with Haverstick Consulting. Menard previously had an automotive design office in Worthing (which was also part of the old TWR empire) but this was closed down in 2004 and staff relocated to Leafield. It remains to be seen what Honda will do with the automotive consultancy side of the business.

Gordon says that any deal with Honda will not be affecting his NASCAR engine supply.

Softbank and F1

Softbank, Japan's biggest IT business, is rumoured to be the funding behind the rumoured Honda B team. The company is controlled by 48-year-old billionaire Masayoshi Son, who has been using sports to promote his business in the past few years, buying the naming rights to the Green Stadium in Kobe, and renaming it after Yahoo! BB, one of his most successful businesses. Son also acquired the Fukuoka Hawks baseball teams, which is based in the area of southern Japan where he grew up.

From a Korean family which settled in Japan, Son was educated in America, ending up at university in Berkeley where he soon realised the potential of computer technology and quickly made his first million with an automatic translating device. He returned to Japan in 1981 and started Softbank, a firm which was originally a publisher of software and computer media. This was a success and in 1995 he bought Ziff-Davis, the world's largest IT-related publishing company. That was just one of his investments in the early part of the Internet boom, the most important one being a 37% share of Yahoo! At the height of the dot.com boom Softbank was valued at $140bn and while many of the businesses later ran into trouble, Son's successes easily outweighed thye failures and by reducing his stake in Yahoo! he was able to fund other acquisitions, notably in the broadband industry and in telecommunications. Softbank recently bought Japan Telecom for $3bn.

[MannTecV10 0]

This is actually quite interesting, the facilities, engine and money are now there, Arrows had a good factory and wind tunnel set-up and interestingly Leafield is only 20 or so miles from Swindon, home of the UK Honda car factory and another 20 or so miles south of Brackley, home of BAR. Perhaps this is the reason Dan Wheldon is making an announcement Tuesday as well! I guess Sato is still slated to be one of the drivers so again it looks like poor Davidson will miss out!

[narain fan 0]

This is actually quite interesting, the facilities, engine and money are now there, Arrows had a good factory and wind tunnel set-up and interestingly Leafield is only 20 or so miles from Swindon, home of the UK Honda car factory and another 20 or so miles south of Brackley, home of BAR. Perhaps this is the reason Dan Wheldon is making an announcement Tuesday as well! I guess Sato is still slated to be one of the drivers so again it looks like poor Davidson will miss out!

actually only yesterday i had read on a f1 news site that as customer chassis wont be allowed ,honda b team plans could falter

anyway great news if it materialises as more cars would mean more options for drivers still looking for a drive

[Sato 0]

Like that will stop the teams sharing info

[CC 0]

Another team has to be good for sport, irrelevant of the drivers which might drive for it

[KimizChamp 0]

Honestly, it would be a real surprise to me personally if this really happens tomorrow.

Even though a plan may be announced, it doesn't necessarily mean that it will happen. Guess only time will tell

[CC 0]

Welcome KimizChamp

[KimizChamp 0]

Welcome KimizChamp

thanx CC

[jjoseph 0]

KimizChamp. Happy to see one more Kimi fan in the forum

[Shadow 0]

welcome Kimizchamp

by the way new team tommorow you got to be kidding

[MannTecV10 0]

I am sure there are other ways of building an F1 car quickly. No doubt BAR have pursued more than one design channel with their own car and thus have other designs sat on a big design server somewhere, waiting to be 'aquired' by a group of designers down the M40 in Leafield, and does not look 100% like the BAR. They should have the equiptment ot manufacture the bits and pieces in house, and as far as i am aware, teams can buy identical parts from outside suppliers. The gear box could be BARs (actually, forgive me Team Honda's) in much the same way Jordan used Toyota's gearbox and traction control and Sauber Ferrari's.

Plus even if they rush out a car that is slow for the start of the season, literally meeting the basic design and safety requirements, then they might have enough time to design and produce a decent car in time for the start of the European season in San Marino on 23rd April, which gives them nearly seven months to design and build it.

I am also curious as to if the new Aguri Suzuki team might be BAR Honda? Think about it, Honda are going to have to pay the start-up bond anyway ($40,000,000) for the 'b' team, why not 'create' next years 'a' car as an all new design and engine package using the workforce and facilities at Brackley as a new F1 entry, with no exisiting contracts and because the 2006 Honda/BAR has not actually been built yet, sell the new designs to Team Honda and then allow last years car to be revised by the intellectual property right owners BAR! Its a fiddle, but with a good legal team, I think Honda could convince the FIA that it is Team Honda who are the new guys and BAR (Honda the existing team. The only downside is that Team Honda would be at the back of the pitlane with numbers 22 and 23 on the cars!

[pumpdoc 2]

I don't think coming up with a new chassis will be that difficult the only ? being will it even be remotely competitive????

[Taku 0]

super aguri f1! what a name.......

[Senna 0]

super aguri f1! what a name.......

Reminds me of a certain SNES title:

I have finally decided. This team has a far worse moniker than Squadro Toro Rosso. Its sickening