MOTORSPORT: Perspectives on Honda's F1 pullout

David Richards and Middle East money could be the saviour
Honda's shock withdrawal from Formula 1 is a spear through the heart of the world's premier motor racing series.

But what's that about every cloud having a silver lining?

As unlikely as it seems at the minute, the team that has been Honda may yet be on the grid in Melbourne's Albert Park at the end of next March.

Let's just look firstly at what could happen, even amidst the global economic meltdown that is seeing global car sales slump by 30-40 per cent, rather than what has happened.

David Richards, head of Prodrive, which among its many activities operates Ford Performance Vehicles and Ford Performance Racing in Australia and Subaru's World Rally Champion team on the international stage, as well as now effectively controlling Aston Martin, wanted a couple of years back what would have been F1's 12th franchise.

Indeed, Prodrive was anointed for that franchise, but it all came unstuck because of the successful objections of some of the existing teams to it running a "customer" car -- which would have been a McLaren-Mercedes like those of the McLaren factory team -- rather than build its own chassis.

Prodrive and Richards probably lost a not inconsiderable amount of money on just going through the exercise of applying for that 12th franchise, getting it, planning to set-up, only to see it all scuttled.

The purpose of this background is as a reminder that David Richards, essentially a rallying man, was very keen to get into F1. Indeed, he's been in it a couple of times before.

He ran the Benetton team reasonably successfully for a short time, but things didn't work out with the Benetton family, Flavio Briatore was brought back, the team was sold to Renault and its won a couple of world titles with Fernando Alonso since, in 2005 and 2006.

Richards also ran the British American Tobacco-sponsored Honda team that Jacques Villeneuve and Craig Pollock had founded for a while, later acquired by Honda, and indeed in 2004 it was for a time the No. 2 team in F1 to Ferrari.

Again, Richards had a falling out somewhere along the line, and one of his Prodrive lieutenants, Nick Fry (pictured), ended up in control of the Honda F1 team.

All rather strange that, and the team's performances have not been anywhere near as good under Fry's stewardship.

This year Honda was ninth in a constructors' world championship in which only 10 teams competed for the whole season.

But there was great hope, and perhaps there is still reason for hope, that things can greatly improve with Ross Brawn -- former Ferrari and Benetton technical director -- in charge.

Amid the world financial crisis, it is hard to envisage a buyer for any F1 team at the minute, but this is where Richards comes in. And might it be a case of "cometh the hour, cometh the man".

Here is someone with the experience of running F1 teams and who just a couple of years ago was set to found a new team until roadblocks were put in front of him. And this someone has just sold 40 per cent of his Prodrive business to a Kuwaiti investment firm.

Now what's to say, while nobody from Europe let alone the US wants to invest in an F1 team right now, that Richards can't entice some oil money out of Kuwait to buy the Honda team.

And if not from Kuwait, what about Dubai? That emirate already has a world-class motor racing facility, much like those in Bahrain, Turkey and Shanghai.

Dubai's track is grossly under-utilised, yet it could host a grand prix at the drop of a hat.

The opportunity is there for David Richards to pull off what to some might seem like a miracle, but which in the cold hard light of day perhaps is pretty obvious.

It's a buyer's market right now, so the Honda team could come very cheaply, although it will then need perhaps US$200 million to race for a season -- and Kuwait or Dubai have got to be the most likely places to find that kind of financial clout right now.

So the spear through the heart of F1 might be something that can be fixed with some emergency, and delicate, surgery.

David Richards might just be the man who can be F1's saviour in what otherwise looks like a catastrophe.

Nick Fry has already said that "three serious people" have already made overtures about buying the Honda team. Don't be surprised if Richards is the most serious of those three.

Another contender may be Martin Leach, a former Ford colleague of Fry who looked at keeping Super Aguri afloat earlier this year.

To recap on what's happened, Honda has announced that it is out of F1, essentially with immediate effect -- although its team is a long way down the track with its 2009 cars, which -- like those of all teams -- will be quite radically different, because of the introduction of KERS (kinetic energy recovery systems), drastically reduced aerodynamics and the return of slick tyres after a decade of four grooves.

Not only is Honda not prepared to field a team any longer, it is not even prepared to supply engines.

Ferrari motors may be the quickest and easiest alternative power supply for any buyer of the Honda team.

Honda wants a buyer found by the end of this month, otherwise the team will be shut down by the end of March -- just as the new season gets underway with the Australian GP in Melbourne.

As bleak as it sounded in the first hours as the news filtered out, and against the backdrop of the world financial problems and plunging car sales, we can still see the new Honda F1 cars being on the grid in Melbourne under new ownership, with David Richards as team principal, and perhaps with Ferrari engines, unless a buyer can take over the Honda engine project as well, or Honda associate Mugen returns to the F1 fray. (Now that's something we would like to see).

Nick Fry has said: "We have 700 people working for the team and at the moment it is business as usual.

"This is a completely different situation from prior F1 teams stopping.

"This is one of the best-funded, it has the best assets, the best resources in the pitlane, with a fantastic group of people with a car obviously designed by Ross Brawn.

"I think we are quite a desirable asset for somebody.

"This is all to do with the financial situation in the world, and as you know all the motor companies are being struck very hard by falling sales.

"Clearly more success on the track would have been nice, but I think this is a much bigger-picture issue.

"This year we have been developing the Ross Brawn-designed 2009 car and we are very hopeful that this team is going a big step upwards."

Asked what it costs to run an F1 team for a year, Fry said: "Give or take, it's probably US$350 million, something like that. It's a lot of money, but big companies enter F1 because it's a global stage."

Despite that astronomical annual budget figure, Fry reckoned that agreements reached this week by the F1 Teams Association (FOTA) would result in huge savings in the sport -- at last.

That is something Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) president Max Mosley has been pushing for yonks.

There is no love lost between Honda and Mosley, especially over the outlawing of Honda's F1 fuel system about three years back and what was perceived within GP circles as an outrageous threat by Mosley to the car company, but this Honda withdrawal from F1 is not just a new round of that stoush.

It's a serious response to the rapidly-changing world financial and automotive scene.

Not that Honda, Japan's No. 2 carmaker, is the worst-affected automotive company in the meltdown, although its sales seem to have been unduly harshly hit considering the value they offer for reasonable price -- and with the benefits of technology developed through F1.

It's hard to think of another car manufacturer that has made better use of F1 as a testing ground.

F1 commercial supremo Bernie Ecclestone would rarely be shocked by any news that breaks in "his" sport, but we suspect this Honda pullout has taken him pretty much by surprise. He may have had only an hour or two's advance notice.

Little Bernie is not a man who has any time for negativity about F1, and has declared that it is in no bigger crisis than any other business in the world.

"The world is in crisis at the moment, but it won't stop," he said. "The world won't stop -- that's for sure.

"It's a big shame for Honda, because I've no doubt that team would have been running certainly in the top four next year without any problems.

"They've been working hard and they've spent a lot of money to put themselves in that position, so if anyone wants to be in F1 this is a team they should certainly look to buy.

"It's a big opportunity, with the way things are, for any company that's run efficiently to benefit."

You've got to admire Bernie's optimism and salesmanship -- and to a large extent we agree.

But there are downsides to Honda's withdrawal if no buyer is found to keep the team alive in '09. Here are a few of them:

>> The F1 field would be reduced to just 18 cars, when it was built by Ecclestone through the 1980s and early 1990s on having grids of 26 for the benefit of the global race telecasts.

>> Apart from damage to the image of F1, it could create serious knock-on effects for private equity investment group CVC, which has huge debts to service on the 75 per cent of the F1 empire it owns (while Ecclestone retains the rest, and day-to-day control).

>> The career of Jenson Button, who by our reckoning remains close to being one of the top 10 drivers in F1 despite the plethora of young talent, would be in tatters, with little prospect of him finding a drive in another GP team next season. Honda Motor Company CEO Takeo Fukui has publicly apologised to Button, who spent many millions of his own money to buy himself out of a Williams contract to pursue his world title dream with Honda.

>> The career of Rubens Barrichello, veteran of more GP starts than any driver in F1 history, would certainly be over.

>> Bruno Senna, 25-year-old nephew of the late Ayrton Senna, in our view the greatest of all F1 drivers (and synonymous with Honda engine power in the late 1980s and early '90s), may not get to race in F1, at least in 2009 -- unless he can wangle a seat with Scuderia Toro Rosso.

>> Japan's Takuma Sato, out of an F1 drive since the demise of Honda satellite team Super Aguri early this season, may never get another opportunity to race in GPs. F1 has traditionally been very strong in Japan, largely built on the back of Honda's success, and can well do with a quality Japanese driver on the grid.

>> For the Australian GP, Honda's absence will remove a major corporate client for its hospitality package, and if its "spend" cannot be replaced -- difficult in this financial environment -- the "damage" goes straight on the Australian Grand Prix Corporation's bottomline, already drowning in red ink.

So some nasty side-effects, but we still reckon the sun will break through those clouds again and reveal some kind of silver lining.

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