Honda Withdraw From Grand Prix Racing
Uh-oh, this is bad news.
“Honda Racing is expected to make an announcement on Friday morning UK time that it is withdrawing from grand prix racing as a works team – and possibly shuttering its team outright.”
That is huge, and unexpected news. The last figures I read, Honda was spending around 380 – 400 million a year on it’s F1 team (which has been winless apart from Jenson Button backing into the top step of the podium in Hungary a few years back).
You can couple that 380 – 400 million a year figure into one that I was just reading about Honda sales being down … what was it now, 30%? 35% At any rate, it was a huge drop off. So you put those two together and it could very well mean that people like Ross Brawn (Brawn fer’cris’sake!) could be looking for work.
Source: SpeedTV
That really is a shame for the Honda team, but 380-400 million on a team that isn't even really winning sounds insane to me.
i think that their results this season were a major factor in their withdrawal. Bad management, poor results and they spent a lot with the F1 team. How could they be satisfied with 13-14 points with a yearly budget of $500 mil? that’s why it was a good decision to withdraw.