The Tragic Story Behind Honda’s Failed F1 Program

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  • เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 ม.ค. 2025

ความคิดเห็น • 58

  • @MrBlazemaster525
    @MrBlazemaster525 หลายเดือนก่อน +93

    Minor correction
    Honda didn't ditch F1 in '68 just because of "selling cars" - they took a GIGANTIC black eye after Jo Schlesser's fatal wreck at the 1968 French GP

    • @JakeSimRacing
      @JakeSimRacing  หลายเดือนก่อน +20

      That’s true too, an oversight by me. Definitely a dangerous time

    • @Fitch93
      @Fitch93 หลายเดือนก่อน +5

      I'd heard that was why they shelved the car after Postlthwaite's passing. They were afraid another death would be attributed to their name in Formula 1.

    • @privateinformation2960
      @privateinformation2960 หลายเดือนก่อน +6

      @@JakeSimRacing i think you need to do *just a little bit more digging* into Formula 1 mate. ALL of the stories are *well told* and *well known*
      Jordan took Mugen engines because they were forced on them by Bernie fucking Ecclestone, and with 3 podiums from two seasons worth of starts with Mugen engines.... their wins had *zero* to do with the engines and *everything* to do with the skill of the drivers, and Jordan finished up at the end of the year.
      Ford Toyota and BMW *all* failed. Two of em as previous championship winners. Ford is just about to fail again as an engine designer (oh wait no totally not true because red bull are building their own engines) with Red Bull, and BMW, while being well known as the designer of the most powerful engines in history.... havent been in the sport for 20 years.... because they havent got the money for it.

    • @Twmpa
      @Twmpa หลายเดือนก่อน +5

      @@JakeSimRacing Jo Schlesser's car, the RA302, was made largely from magnesium because it was the lightest material available at that time. Magnesium, easily ignited with a match, burns at over 3000 degrees C. Their other driver at the time, John Surtees, tested it, pronounced it to be a deathtrap and refused to race it. This is why Honda withdrew at the end of the 1968 season.

    • @marguskiis7711
      @marguskiis7711 หลายเดือนก่อน

      ​@@Twmpa jo Schlesser death had nothing to do with the magnesium body. He was a mediocre formula 2 driver agreed to drive a F1 car. It was a rainy day and he just crashed into earth bank with the high speed and the car was totally destroyed. He was killed instantly by the impact. The side fuel tank also exploded by the impact and made the wreck burn.

  • @cirian75
    @cirian75 หลายเดือนก่อน +48

    Honda may have been having doubts, But Harvey's death made an instant nope.

    • @purwantiallan5089
      @purwantiallan5089 หลายเดือนก่อน

      True. Honda's momentum stopped from that point until 1993.

  • @StuartGarlick
    @StuartGarlick 26 วันที่ผ่านมา +7

    Autosport or F1 Racing at the time wrote that Postlethwaite likely knew of Honda's withdrawal prior to that test, and suspected that it may have contributed to stress he was feeling. It's hard to imagine how demoralising it must have been to go through the motions of testing, knowing your team was done for, while keeping the truth from staff.

  • @Andre_The_Millennial
    @Andre_The_Millennial หลายเดือนก่อน +36

    IMO, Harvey's death may have been a convenient excuse for Honda.

    • @purwantiallan5089
      @purwantiallan5089 หลายเดือนก่อน

      Honda 1999 testing livery actually look really nice.

  • @ivaneurope
    @ivaneurope หลายเดือนก่อน +32

    Honda and Renault have a really on-off relationship with F1 as in they enter and then leave/reduce their involvement on multiple occasions. Even today that mentality persists for these two manufacturers - Honda reduced its involvement to just providing technical support to Red Bull to keep the power units competitive only to return in 2026 on their own with Aston Martin. Renault on the other hand will cease its engine supply after 2025, ending effectively 30+ year presence in the sport as an engine manufacturer in some way, shape or form (the late 90's Mecachrome/Playlife/Supertec engines were basically 1997-spec Renault engines), with the Renault-owned Alpine team will instead use customer Mercedes units from 2026

    • @purwantiallan5089
      @purwantiallan5089 หลายเดือนก่อน

      Same also for Hesketh engines.

    • @djcopie
      @djcopie หลายเดือนก่อน

      @@purwantiallan5089 Hesketh engines... what????

    • @kawaiikeyboards
      @kawaiikeyboards 29 วันที่ผ่านมา +3

      don't forget Toyota too with Haas lol. These manufacturers come and go whenever they like because F1 doesn't penalize teams that has money. Yet teams like Andretti get shafted because they're a small fry compared to the rest of the grid. (but I really do hope Cadillac will prove everyone wrong)

    • @900108Chale
      @900108Chale 21 วันที่ผ่านมา

      Never say Goodbye to Renault...
      History has proven they ALWAYS come back somehow and tbh the current corp. mgmt .is anything but persistent.

  • @zx10racer22
    @zx10racer22 21 วันที่ผ่านมา +2

    “Honda pulled out when Harvey Postlethwaite died” is usually the story told with this car. Which is sort of true. But not quite… Honda certainly gives the impression it's a company that doesn’t know if it’s coming or going when it comes to F1. They come in with much fanfare and investment, struggle for a short period, and pull out just when they seem to have cracked it. They left McLaren in 92 with a winning car. After years of struggle in the 00s, they sold a title winner to Brawn for nothing. And after struggling in the last decade, they finally fixed it, won with Red Bull and then quit. Only to now announce a comeback with Aston Martin...
    But what may seem like a bizarre and indecisive approach to hundreds of millions of dollars in investment can find its roots in the boardroom battles of a huge global corporation, where different parties have different interests. Back in the early 90s, one of those parties was Nobuhiko Kawamoto. He’d been head of R&D at Honda during the glory years with Williams and McLaren in the late 80s, and was promoted to CEO at the start of the 90s. Kawamoto was a racer at heart and thought Honda belonged at the sport’s top table. The problem however was that Honda sold a lot of cars in North America, where F1 meant little. A boardroom struggle ensued, and the bigger revenue gave the North American voices the bigger say. Honda was officially out of F1 at the end of 1992 and building CART engines instead.
    The fact that Mugen continued to develop and sell the old F1 engine to customer teams, and that Honda R&D (Kawamoto’s old department) would get a budget to build F1 cars on voluntary staff time, was of no consequence to the guys in North America, as they weren’t paying for either. So officially, Honda was out. The stories of two cars Honda R&D in Japan did build, the RC100 and RC101, are very interesting in their own right…
    However, Kawamoto and Honda Japan wouldn’t let the issue go, and continued pushing for a full factory return to the sport. By 1998, things were getting serious. F1 was negotiating for a GP at Indy in 2000, which they thought would help appease Honda North America, and Bernie was keen to see them back. There were two issues - one was cost, and the other was competitiveness. An approach was made in early 1998 to Mugen’s new partner, Jordan. EJ was keen for a full factory Honda engine deal, but wanted to keep the team and call the shots. This didn’t work for Honda, who wanted a full factory team, with EJ put into retirement. So, when those talks stalled, Honda started to assess the prospects of building a car themselves.
    In the meantime, BAT had purchased Tyrrell, renamed it BAR and set about shedding much of its old workforce, including Dr Harvey Postlethwaite. So, Honda decided to dip a toe and, on 8 May 1998, Honda Racing Development Ltd was set-up in the UK, to run a UK-based design office. Postlethwaite would lead the development, Dallara would build the car in Italy, Mugen-Honda would provide the engine and Bernie offered an entry slot for 1999. All systems were go… almost. Just as work was progressing, more boardroom trouble was brewing in Japan and Kawamoto was gone - victim of a management coup. The biggest voice for the full factory Honda F1 outfit was no longer in place, though his replacement still broadly favoured a return to F1.
    Further delays arose in securing the release of recruitments from Tyrrell, and whilst work was going well, it was not quite fast enough. On 3 August 1998, Honda accepted defeat and pushed their 1999 entry back to 2000, but the new management in Japan still seemed supportive. Progress continued and by December 1998, Dallara had the first new car built and running. However, there was still an issue with budgets. Honda in North America still wanted nothing to do with F1 and Honda Japan felt they couldn’t do it without boardroom support from their US counterparts.
    As F1 entered 1999, Honda was in a dilemma. Enter BAR. F1’s new boys were, if nothing else, very ambitious. And they knew the Supertec engines they were going to use in 1999 were not a long-term solution for a team wanting to challenge for titles quickly. BAR didn’t get much right in 1999, but the thought that Supertec was only a 1-year stop-gap to something bigger proved correct, and BAR’s cars spent much of 1999 handgrenading themselves.
    So before BAR had even started their first race in F1, BAT pitched an idea to Honda - join forces as a full factory partner with BAR for 2000, and BAT would throw a lot of money Honda’s way to sweeten the deal in a way Eddie Jordan could never have managed, sadly for him. So, despite having turned away from Jordan for the desire to run its own ship, BAR-Honda suddenly seemed a lot more attractive than the car Postlethwaite’s team were designing with ex BAR / Tyrrell staff. It was going to cost Honda far less, prevent the need for a whole new team, and still kept alive the prospect of a full buy-out when the tobacco ban would eventually force BAT out of the sport. Honda’s head was being turned.
    Still, at this stage, no decisions had been made and Postlethwaite’s team was pushing ahead. Verstappen tested the car in early 1999 and initial performance was encouraging, as you've mentioned. They were even being ambitious in the driver market and met with Eddie Irvine, who’s improving form with Ferrari was starting to make him think there may be more to his life F1 than being Schumacher’s number 2. Eddie was keen - Honda was his preferred option to Jaguar (according to the man himself).
    However, the offer from BAR and the unknown issue of the costs of running their own team was causing the tide in the Honda boardroom to shift. Despite having the RA099 on track, at a lengthy board meeting in March 1999, Honda pulled the plug. The budgetary risks of going alone were too high, when the competitiveness of the team was uncertain. The big cheeses preferred the BAR route.
    Postlethwaite, however, wasn’t quite ready to give up yet. On 5 April 1999, he offered a suggestion to Honda to save the team he had started to build - he proposed that he and other management at Honda Racing Development buy 60% of the company from Honda and run it initially as a private entry in 2000, named HRD International. They would cover the operating costs through $40m of sponsorship already agreed with Mild Seven, if Honda provided engines for free. The team would test through 1999, and the entry in 2000 would allow Honda to assess the real costs and competitiveness of the team, with a view to buying it back and going full factory. The following week, still awaiting a response to his proposal, Postlethwaite and his team headed to Barcelona for another test, but fate would intervene. F1 lost one of its most beloved engineers and the UK Honda Racing Development team lost its leader.
    Without Postlethwaite at the helm, any lingering hopes that the UK team could rescue the deal were gone. In the week before the 1999 San Marino Grand Prix, BAR announced a factory Honda engine supply for 2000. A bitter pill for Jordan, who were still on a customer Mugen deal for 2000, despite how close they would later come to a shock title win in 1999. And although EJ eventually got a factory deal from Honda for 2001 and 2002, the ties between Honda and BAR were always the stronger because BAR were able to help fund the Honda development through the deal which killed off the RA099, and their deal contained provisions for the Honda buyout which would eventually happen in 2005, for an official Honda entry in 2006.
    The 2001 and 2002 seasons were pitched as a battle between Jordan and BAR for the long-term factory support from Honda, but in truth it was always going to BAR, despite Jordan beating them in both seasons.
    So ultimately, it’s probably inaccurate to say that Postlethwaite’s death led to the end of the RA099. The writing was probably on the wall anyway, due to BAT’s deep pockets and a reluctance from powerful elements on the Honda board to go it alone, rather than partner with an existing team. I suspect the idea of running as HRD International for 2000, rather than a full Honda effort, would have also ended Irvine’s interest in joining. A shame it had to end the way it did. The idea of Eddie in a full factory Honda for 2000, rather than the Jaguar, would have been quite appealing.

  • @Gerhardium
    @Gerhardium หลายเดือนก่อน +18

    Good piece but the title seems off: I'd argue the death of Elio D'Angelis while testing is more "infamous" given the circumstances and the fact his death was the result of poor safety preparations at Paul Ricard.

    • @solsol1624
      @solsol1624 หลายเดือนก่อน

      My first thought too

    • @purwantiallan5089
      @purwantiallan5089 หลายเดือนก่อน

      The RA099 almost resemble the Stewart GP 1997 livery.

    • @andywilliams4063
      @andywilliams4063 29 วันที่ผ่านมา

      Was Paul Ricard owned by Bernie E

    • @solsol1624
      @solsol1624 29 วันที่ผ่านมา

      @andywilliams4063 yes it was, but not sure if in 86

    • @ianyoung1106
      @ianyoung1106 24 วันที่ผ่านมา +1

      @@andywilliams4063Not at that time. Ironically the fallout contributed over time to the circumstances that led to Bernie having the opportunity to buy it in (I think) the mid-late 1990s

  • @tiadaid
    @tiadaid หลายเดือนก่อน +8

    The Honda RA099 may have failed, but at least they gave us the prophetic image of their future champion behind the wheel of the car, even though he was just a toddler!

  • @mrkipling2201
    @mrkipling2201 18 วันที่ผ่านมา

    Jo Schlesser's magnesium death trap car, that was the reason behind his sad passing in 1968, is why Honda pulled out of F1.......

  • @purwantiallan5089
    @purwantiallan5089 หลายเดือนก่อน

    The 1968 Pre Season test proven to be quite a major turning point for Honda in 1960s.

  • @R1j0hn
    @R1j0hn หลายเดือนก่อน +3

    The 90's were the hay-day of Formula 1... 💯 The cars were so exciting !

    • @purwantiallan5089
      @purwantiallan5089 หลายเดือนก่อน

      RA099 could've been originally fielded by Eddie Irvine and Takuma Sato for 1999 F1 Season.

    • @marguskiis7711
      @marguskiis7711 หลายเดือนก่อน

      Nope

  • @ZZZzzzap12
    @ZZZzzzap12 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

    One thing is for sure, it's fantastic looking car...

    • @marguskiis7711
      @marguskiis7711 หลายเดือนก่อน

      What??? Boring as hell.

  • @mattg432
    @mattg432 14 วันที่ผ่านมา +1

    Too many died at tests to call one "Most Infamous Test" for clickbait. McLaren, Depailler, others.

    • @JakeSimRacing
      @JakeSimRacing  14 วันที่ผ่านมา

      You’re correct. Fixed.

  • @coqpit77
    @coqpit77 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

    I think, there's no way to find out how quick the RA099 was. It looks like it was fast enough to become a midfielder, i remember it was able to produce lap times comparable to the frontrunners'. Once upon a time, it had even set the best time in the test where many teams were present. However, we don't know neither how quick it was in long stints, nor how much fuel was in its tank and in the tanks of its rivals when they had set their fastest lap times, we don't even know whether did it comply to the ruleset or not so we only could guess. I suppose, the car was a potential lower midfielder, a competitor to the likes of Jaguar and Benetton, it hasn't had any revolutionary innovation like Brawn in 2009 with its double diffuser, while in that era there was already no possibility for a miracle to happen

  • @derbieber80
    @derbieber80 หลายเดือนก่อน +3

    Honda makes so much mistakes after 1992 and really dosnt wont to become worldmaster

    • @purwantiallan5089
      @purwantiallan5089 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

      Had Honda not made that fatal mistake after 1992, it could've had massive outcome change.

  • @kwacker45
    @kwacker45 หลายเดือนก่อน

    Japans huge huge debt is crippling

  • @eduardooliveira7558
    @eduardooliveira7558 หลายเดือนก่อน +4

    Completely impossible this car to be on par with Ferrari and McLaren in 1999, just a look at it and you know it would be at the back of the field.

    • @JakeSimRacing
      @JakeSimRacing  หลายเดือนก่อน +2

      True. Rumors of how quick it was got completely out of hand

  • @donstevenson2660
    @donstevenson2660 หลายเดือนก่อน +4

    ....and when Ross took that Honda lump out of his car, he won.

    • @victordinev5229
      @victordinev5229 หลายเดือนก่อน +5

      If you're talking about 2009, it was completely ready developed car by honda and they basically gifted the team because it was a recession, and Honda chickened. So with or without honda 2009 car had an advantage at the beginning and won without any major changes we only can imagine if honda stayed.

  • @roelandzw1846
    @roelandzw1846 หลายเดือนก่อน +9

    It took the career of Jos Verstappen aswell 😢

    • @jnbr7520
      @jnbr7520 หลายเดือนก่อน

      Jos Verstappen was useless obnoxious and hard to manage,he caused his own downfall in F1

    • @djcopie
      @djcopie หลายเดือนก่อน +6

      No... it really did not! First, Jos still drove in F1 after this. Second, his career had pretty much petered out even before he went to Honda's test program. He was never gonna drive for another top team again after the Benetton experience.

    • @roelandzw1846
      @roelandzw1846 หลายเดือนก่อน +3

      @djcopie i know. In my opinion Honda was an opportunitie and a good chance to find the way back up. Unfortunately he drove only back markers after that.
      Yes, benneton was his peak

    • @djcopie
      @djcopie หลายเดือนก่อน +2

      @@roelandzw1846 yes. however i don't believe for a second that Honda were ever gona be close to the front on their first year or two back. Mid-grid at best. There's not a hope in hell that the Dallara test mule was doing anything like competitive times if it had entered a proper GP weekend.

    • @kawaiikeyboards
      @kawaiikeyboards 29 วันที่ผ่านมา +2

      Jos was always mid tier throughout his career. Even in the lower end of the grid he does get outpaced by his teammates

  • @MrBrno
    @MrBrno หลายเดือนก่อน +3

    If they used the same engines that they supplied Jordan and BAR with, no, there was no way they were gonna be quick.

  • @briantaylor9285
    @briantaylor9285 หลายเดือนก่อน

    😢💔🙏