Honda poised to quit F1

yeah customer team = arena prep and run the cars, but I reckon Ford will be keeping an eye on proceedings and may even be giving a little help (supply of bits etc) here and there. Maybe I'm wrong, just seems strange to pick an unproved car when they could go and buy bmws/civics/vectras/leons (seat have dropped out for 2009 so there are a few chassis lying around), all of which are race winners.
 
whitewash said:
i cant believe you've said that, peoples jobs and livelyhoods depend on hondas participation and the likely hood of finding a buyer isnt great in this climate, i hope for the sake of the staff that they do.

having found out only yesterday that my job is secure for another year (in the same industry) i feel very much for those less fortunate and your cry of 'i dont find it entertaining so lets hope it dissapears from the surface of the earth' a bit in bad taste for the 1000+ (a guess figure on how many hondaf1 employ) who may find themselves out of work in what are fairly hard times:shrug:
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I dont wish unemployment on anyone, particularly now. Although many are highly skilled and could find work even in these difficult times. It has to be said that anyone working in F1 should be aware of the risks as it has never been the most stable form of employment (witness the many team changes and collapses over the years) and many are highly paid because of this risk.

F1 has ceased to be a true sport and is now simply an entertainment business. I find the money involved grotesque, even more so when average people are losing their jobs, and a proportion of the developed and developing are living in poverty etc etc.

I could go on but i won't.
 
I have never understood why manufacturers pump so much money into motosport!! How many of you have actually gone out to buy a Merc because Lewis won the F1 championship in one? Or even a Ferrari or any other make iin F1?!! Someone said that Vauxhall do well out of BTCC. Again, how amny people have bought a Vectra because they have seen them in BTCC? And if they do so well out of it, why is the Mondeo (are they in any kind of motorsport?) outselling it? If they want exposure, they can spend considerable less on proper advertising, which you would see more than once every fortnight for 6 or 7 months of a year.
 
Torpedo said:
I have never understood why manufacturers pump so much money into motosport!! How many of you have actually gone out to buy a Merc because Lewis won the F1 championship in one? Or even a Ferrari or any other make iin F1?!! Someone said that Vauxhall do well out of BTCC. Again, how amny people have bought a Vectra because they have seen them in BTCC? And if they do so well out of it, why is the Mondeo (are they in any kind of motorsport?) outselling it? If they want exposure, they can spend considerable less on proper advertising, which you would see more than once every fortnight for 6 or 7 months of a year.
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its all about image
look at the difference in image that diesels had 5 years ago to what they have now.
In fact look at the difference in image of Audi to what they were 15 years ago when no one would consider buying one and everyone called them Ordi.
I'm not saying its all down motorsport and I'm not saying thats the only reason to go racing.
 
Torpedo said:
If they want exposure, they can spend considerable less on proper advertising, which you would see more than once every fortnight for 6 or 7 months of a year.
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But an advert for Audi about them winning god knows how many 24 hour races is more of a persuasive advert to a company's fleet manager.
 
Torpedo said:
I have never understood why manufacturers pump so much money into motosport!! How many of you have actually gone out to buy a Merc because Lewis won the F1 championship in one? Or even a Ferrari or any other make iin F1?!! Someone said that Vauxhall do well out of BTCC. Again, how amny people have bought a Vectra because they have seen them in BTCC? And if they do so well out of it, why is the Mondeo (are they in any kind of motorsport?) outselling it? If they want exposure, they can spend considerable less on proper advertising, which you would see more than once every fortnight for 6 or 7 months of a year.
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Manufacturers pump alot of money into motorsport for plenty of reasons. It is high profile and effective advertising. Cheaper than some other forms too. The reason the Mondeo outsells the Vectra would be that the Mondeo is the better car. With a car the likes of Ferrari, F1 is the only advertising they have really and I dare say it does sell their cars.
As Gary mentioned Audi, I believe their Rallying did raise their profile. Motorsport is also a means of development that filters through to road cars.
 
Craft said:
yeah customer team = arena prep and run the cars, but I reckon Ford will be keeping an eye on proceedings and may even be giving a little help (supply of bits etc) here and there. Maybe I'm wrong, just seems strange to pick an unproved car when they could go and buy bmws/civics/vectras/leons (seat have dropped out for 2009 so there are a few chassis lying around), all of which are race winners.
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Customer team refers to a racing chassis bought from a manufacurers race car builder. Team RAC are Customer teams as they bought their cars from BMW Motorsport.
Arena are building the cars themselves from scratch.
 
Torpedo said:
I have never understood why manufacturers pump so much money into motosport!! How many of you have actually gone out to buy a Merc because Lewis won the F1 championship in one? Or even a Ferrari or any other make iin F1?!! Someone said that Vauxhall do well out of BTCC. Again, how amny people have bought a Vectra because they have seen them in BTCC? And if they do so well out of it, why is the Mondeo (are they in any kind of motorsport?) outselling it? If they want exposure, they can spend considerable less on proper advertising, which you would see more than once every fortnight for 6 or 7 months of a year.
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It was me that said Vauxhall do well from it.
And I think they do.. its more than outright sales. At every BTCC race is a hospitality trailer, show a vauxhall key and you go in for free biccies and coffee. They promote the vxr range through these events by giving out free tickets to race day for vxr owners, all the cars get lined up together (sometimes in the outer paddock areas). Its all about making a bit of a community thing to keep people coming back in a few years to buy another car. IMHO from what I've seen it works.
AFAIK despite the drubbing that the vectra gets by (some) press it ranks pretty well in sales - certainly in this part of the world theres more of them than mondeos.

F1 marketing is a bit different, its all about prestige and being associated with the glamour.
 
Craft said:
It was me that said Vauxhall do well from it.
And I think they do.. its more than outright sales. At every BTCC race is a hospitality trailer, show a vauxhall key and you go in for free biccies and coffee. They promote the vxr range through these events by giving out free tickets to race day for vxr owners, all the cars get lined up together (sometimes in the outer paddock areas). Its all about making a bit of a community thing to keep people coming back in a few years to buy another car. IMHO from what I've seen it works.
AFAIK despite the drubbing that the vectra gets by (some) press it ranks pretty well in sales - certainly in this part of the world theres more of them than mondeos.
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The Mondeo was the 4th best seller in Britain last month. Fiesta was 1st and Focus second, not sure what was 3rd, probably the Corsa, I don't think the Vectra has ever outsold the Mondeo in Britain. Whilst car sales in Europe are falling, Ford's market share is increasing. So Ford must be doing something right. Vauxhall are puting plants on Layoff due to poor sales, Genk in Belgium where the Mondeo is built can't build them quick enough. They have order lists where some countries have to wait about 9 months for delivery.
 
thanks for that, interesting. I see far less mondeos than I do vectras down here.
 
Just an update, or it may be old news by now ... isn't there supposed to be discussions about someone buying the Honda F1 team?
 
As for why manufactures do F1 I was always lead to believe

They race to sell cars, apart from Ferrari who sell car so they can race.
 
badgerbaiter said:
blimey, you wouldnt catch me driving a car programmed by microsoft! it'll crash!
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hehe, i believe it's only going to be the backend stuff involved with analysing the telemetry data that microsoft is going to be working on. It's all going on the latest version of their database platform.

i'd love to see ford back in the BTCC, that would be awesome!
 
Torpedo said:
I have never understood why manufacturers pump so much money into motosport!! How many of you have actually gone out to buy a Merc because Lewis won the F1 championship in one? Or even a Ferrari or any other make iin F1?!! Someone said that Vauxhall do well out of BTCC. Again, how amny people have bought a Vectra because they have seen them in BTCC? And if they do so well out of it, why is the Mondeo (are they in any kind of motorsport?) outselling it? If they want exposure, they can spend considerable less on proper advertising, which you would see more than once every fortnight for 6 or 7 months of a year.
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Subaru are a perfect case of a company that turned around their entire image due to their participation in motorsport, they were farmers cars before they introduced the legacy to rallying :thumbs:.
 
davelee212 said:
i'd love to see ford back in the BTCC, that would be awesome!
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Not a Ford's works entry but Arena Motorsport are building a couple of Focus ST's for the 2009 BTCC season. Arena are not strangers to the BTCC they ran a Renault Laguna for Russell Spence and then Will Hoy in 1999. They also ran the Honda Civics driven by Matt Neal and Alan Morrison, then Tom Chilton.
 
I heard about (whomever buys Honda F1) them using Ferrari engines next year.
 
MikeeB said:
I heard about (whomever buys Honda F1) them using Ferrari engines next year.
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Now that's one hell of an oxymoron! Honda cars with Ferrari engines :cuckoo:, if you ask me .. but then, I am in no place to argue this further.
 
The negotiations have been denied, it seems to be just rumours that have surfaced from South American press.
 
Dave Richards is supposed to be thinking about a deal with some Middle East investors...
 
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