Will a Japanese team ever challenge for the title?

[jens]

As most of the threads are engaged with McLaren and Ferrari, then let's give some attention to others too.

Will a Japanese - or to put in a wider way - an Asian team ever fight for the World Title in F1?

Honda joined F1 back in the 60's with a big hooray, thinking that they as a factory team would beat all the privateers, but it didn't turn out to be that easy. After that came a big pause and only a few Japanese privateers tried occasionally in the 70's.

In this Millenium Japanese teams have made a comeback. The past was forgotten and in the beginning there was a lot of positivism and optimism that Japan would become a strong force in F1. Before Toyota's joining there wasn't much idea or experience, how would Japanese do in F1, but success in other motorsport areas (WRC, CART, etc) made one supposing that why should success be impossible in F1. After some hard early years the last couple of seasons gave at last some promise. Toyota and Honda, who had taken over BAR, weren't competing for wins on merit, but were good enough to finish consistently in the points and finish on podium occasionally.

But 2007 has been a very harsh reality for Japanese in F1. For Honda everything has gone downhill after taking over BAR (I think promising 2006 was in some way legacy from BAR and Japanese's own influence wasn't very strong yet). It's more than 40 years since the first attempt of Japan and basically nothing has changed. How much longer is it needed to wait? Does it take another 40 years for the Japanese to realize, how to manage a Formula One team properly? :s Although it should be clear for everyone that their methods are not working, then I don't see them making radical changes in the near future and that raises the question, whether there is even a reason to continue participating? Just to get humiliated all the time. :mark:

[Sleeper]

Well, Toyota are promosing to be a lot more agressive with their car next year (better late than never I suppose). Honda have known since the middle of the year what was wrong with this years car and why it would never be more than an occasional points scorer, a legacy of the poor 05 car and the develpment path they took with it which hit them hard when they tryed something very different this year.

Its possible that they could become front runners in the near future, but I'm more sceptical about Toyota who seem to have too much interference from Japan.

[BDunnell]

This is a very interesting question.

Historically, Japanese manufacturers have always done best in motorsport when they have enlisted the expertise of established individuals and companies outside Japan. In F1, Richie Ginther's sole win for Honda in 1965 is a very rare exception. The best of the early F1 Hondas were the 'Hondolas' of 1967, developed in conjunction with John Surtees.

Ever since then, the greatest international successes for the Japanese makes have occurred in conjunction with 'outsiders'. Toyota's rallying victories all occurred thanks to the German-run Toyota Team Europe, just as Mitsubishi's did through Ralliart and Subaru's through Prodrive. Others have gone down similar roads without success, but there are reasons. The one I always cite as the best example of a Japanese manufacturer going about things the wrong way is Nissan's WRC entry with the Sunny GTiR. The Japanese engineers who were heavily involved at the outset didn't have a clue; then, the company's bosses became very peeved when team boss Dave Whittock told them that they shouldn't expect victory first time out. The car's first outing was the Safari Rally in 1991, and Whittock has said that he soon realised that this rally was almost the sole reason for the entire programme. It didn't end up being successful.

As for F1, I think it's fair to say that Toyota did OK at the start of its efforts through having reasonable expectations, but for some reason the team has failed to build on this. I can't put my finger on it, because changes of team personnel and management structure seem to have done little good. The same can be said of Honda, except that its starting point seemed to provide a better basis for development and success. Again, I just don't understand it. The difficulties of both Honda and Toyota could well be down to specific, individual factors, or maybe there is a more fundamental problem with the way Japanese car manufacturers still go about F1. Do they understand it properly?

[Malbec]

Honda joined F1 back in the 60's with a big hooray, thinking that they as a factory team would beat all the privateers, but it didn't turn out to be that easy. After that came a big pause and only a few Japanese privateers tried occasionally in the 70's.

I don't agree with this portrayal at all. Honda knew they were going to have an extremely tough time of it in F1 especially since they had very little experience in building anything with four wheels. Thats why they tried to start off tying themselves up with Cooper (or Lotus, can't remember which) as an engine supplier before deciding to do it on their own when the English team pulled out. Actually winning a race, let alone a championship, wasn't really on the cards hence why they signed a total unknown, Ronnie Bucknum to lead their first season. The reason they entered into F1 wasn't to win which they regarded as a near impossibility but to hone their engineering expertise on four wheels. The same team that developed the F1 car went directly onto designing the first Honda Civic and the CVCC engine that established the company as a car manufacturer especially in the US.


In this Millenium Japanese teams have made a comeback. The past was forgotten and in the beginning there was a lot of positivism and optimism that Japan would become a strong force in F1. Before Toyota's joining there wasn't much idea or experience, how would Japanese do in F1, but success in other motorsport areas (WRC, CART, etc) made one supposing that why should success be impossible in F1. After some hard early years the last couple of seasons gave at last some promise. Toyota and Honda, who had taken over BAR, weren't competing for wins on merit, but were good enough to finish consistently in the points and finish on podium occasionally.

You've missed out an entire chunk of history. During the 80s and early 90s Honda was in F1 ostensibly as an engine supplier but was also heavily involved in other parts of the car. Much of the research work wasn't accepted by their partners like McLaren for example who didn't trust Honda's active suspension system and waited for years to develop their own and thus fell behind Williams.


But 2007 has been a very harsh reality for Japanese in F1. For Honda everything has gone downhill after taking over BAR (I think promising 2006 was in some way legacy from BAR and Japanese's own influence wasn't very strong yet). It's more than 40 years since the first attempt of Japan and basically nothing has changed. How much longer is it needed to wait? Does it take another 40 years for the Japanese to realize, how to manage a Formula One team properly? :s Although it should be clear for everyone that their methods are not working, then I don't see them making radical changes in the near future and that raises the question, whether there is even a reason to continue participating? Just to get humiliated all the time. :mark:

I don't understand how Honda's performance in 2006 was a legacy from BAR when they did better than BAR ever did.

Also I don't feel its productive to lump Toyota and Honda together as simply being Japanese. They are highly different organisations with contrasting approaches to motorsport. Toyota views motorsport as PR, hence why it has contracted out all its major motorsport activities to Toyota Team Europe which despite the name was totally independently run by Anderson. Only once Toyota decided to enter F1 and Anderson started looking at retirement did they take the thing in-house, but even then their F1 project has a decidedly European flavour to it although it appears that major signings have to be ratified by the board in Japan. Its only recently that Toyota have decided to let the team access its huge R/D facilities in Japan and then with limited access.

Honda views F1 more as a training ground for its young engineers to weed out the dross and identify the bright sparks who will drive the rest of the company forwards. As a result their motorsports programmes are very much in-house. Many of the company board members have had race engineering experience and all bar one of the company CEOs comes from a race engineering background. That of course means that F1 is great for Honda as a company but the way they rotate their engineers through their F1 team means that every couple of years the team is drained of its experienced young engineers and gets total rookies as replacements. That of course is in stark contrast to teams like McLaren or Ferrari where the engineers will spend a much longer period in F1 and can only be of detriment to overall racing performance.

Honda recognises like Toyota that they don't have the required expertise in F1 and have therefore acquired a British partner to handle things like aerodynamics or chassis design but that hasn't stopped them from sending engineers across in those fields to learn the trade too.

I do feel that there are also non-cultural reasons for Honda and Toyota failing to reach the very top, 2007 appears to be due to major calibration errors with the new windtunnel which is a problem that also afflicted Williams two years ago for example.

Regarding Toyota, I have previously heard that TTE's engineering focus was on durability rather than outright performance, a result of being involved heavily in endurance weighted events like rallying or Le Mans and that there has been a company-wide difficulty in making the transition to the sprint-like demands of F1.

[BDunnell]

I don't agree with this portrayal at all. Honda knew they were going to have an extremely tough time of it in F1 especially since they had very little experience in building anything with four wheels. Thats why they tried to start off tying themselves up with Cooper (or Lotus, can't remember which) as an engine supplier before deciding to do it on their own when the English team pulled out. Actually winning a race, let alone a championship, wasn't really on the cards hence why they signed a total unknown, Ronnie Bucknum to lead their first season. The reason they entered into F1 wasn't to win which they regarded as a near impossibility but to hone their engineering expertise on four wheels. The same team that developed the F1 car went directly onto designing the first Honda Civic and the CVCC engine that established the company as a car manufacturer especially in the US.

It is worth recalling, too, that the rest of the paddock was pretty amazed at Honda's professionalism right from the outset, with its neat corporate overalls and tidily-organised garages. It made the rest sit up and take notice, especially when the team started being successful in 1965. And it remains a great F1 'what if...' as to whether Honda would have become absolutely dominant had the 1.5-litre formula continued beyond 1965, due to the company's expertise with small-capacity racing engines.

However, the fact remains that the Honda management was able to be persuaded by John Surtees that it needed to can its original 1967 car, and get Lola to design a new one. The decision to go along with Surtees' suggestion was probably the right one at the time, and I'm sure the Honda bosses realised that an entirely in-house approach was unlikely to continue to be successful in the immediate term.



Also I don't feel its productive to lump Toyota and Honda together as simply being Japanese. They are highly different organisations with contrasting approaches to motorsport. Toyota views motorsport as PR, hence why it has contracted out all its major motorsport activities to Toyota Team Europe which despite the name was totally independently run by Anderson. Only once Toyota decided to enter F1 and Anderson started looking at retirement did they take the thing in-house, but even then their F1 project has a decidedly European flavour to it although it appears that major signings have to be ratified by the board in Japan. Its only recently that Toyota have decided to let the team access its huge R/D facilities in Japan and then with limited access.

Honda views F1 more as a training ground for its young engineers to weed out the dross and identify the bright sparks who will drive the rest of the company forwards. As a result their motorsports programmes are very much in-house. Many of the company board members have had race engineering experience and all bar one of the company CEOs comes from a race engineering background. That of course means that F1 is great for Honda as a company but the way they rotate their engineers through their F1 team means that every couple of years the team is drained of its experienced young engineers and gets total rookies as replacements. That of course is in stark contrast to teams like McLaren or Ferrari where the engineers will spend a much longer period in F1 and can only be of detriment to overall racing performance.

Honda recognises like Toyota that they don't have the required expertise in F1 and have therefore acquired a British partner to handle things like aerodynamics or chassis design but that hasn't stopped them from sending engineers across in those fields to learn the trade too.

All very true, but there does seem to be something of a pattern of major Japanese car manufacturers not quite 'getting' motorsport outside their own shores, unless major outside involvement is brought in. That said, there are of course plenty of other countries that have also failed to produce competitive F1 teams.



I do feel that there are also non-cultural reasons for Honda and Toyota failing to reach the very top, 2007 appears to be due to major calibration errors with the new windtunnel which is a problem that also afflicted Williams two years ago for example.

Indeed.



Regarding Toyota, I have previously heard that TTE's engineering focus was on durability rather than outright performance, a result of being involved heavily in endurance weighted events like rallying or Le Mans and that there has been a company-wide difficulty in making the transition to the sprint-like demands of F1.

This is very true, but Ove Andersson has said that the team's rallying expertise was also an advantage at times. Most notably, he feels that it was crucial at Toyota's very first F1 race in Melbourne, where the mechanics were able to repair Salo's car, which was quite badly damaged, and get it back out whereupon it duly scored a point. Longer-term, though, it seems not to have had much of a positive effect.

[jens]

All very good points, Dylan H. :up: But I'd like to comment one thing. :p :



I don't understand how Honda's performance in 2006 was a legacy from BAR when they did better than BAR ever did.


Better than BAR ever did? BAR's 2004 season was generally clearly better than Honda's in 2006, despite failing to win a race. And in the second half of 2005 BAR was quite competitive too, building a good platform for 2006. Changes - like Honda's takeover - do not have an immediate effect, it takes about half a year or even a full year to see the real results. Also when Willis was replaced with Nakamura (I think it's a direct result of Honda's involvement, somehow doubt such change would have happened in BAR), Honda stayed strong in the second half of the year and we only saw the consequencies this year.

[Malbec]

It is worth recalling, too, that the rest of the paddock was pretty amazed at Honda's professionalism right from the outset, with its neat corporate overalls and tidily-organised garages. It made the rest sit up and take notice, especially when the team started being successful in 1965. And it remains a great F1 'what if...' as to whether Honda would have become absolutely dominant had the 1.5-litre formula continued beyond 1965, due to the company's expertise with small-capacity racing engines.

However, the fact remains that the Honda management was able to be persuaded by John Surtees that it needed to can its original 1967 car, and get Lola to design a new one. The decision to go along with Surtees' suggestion was probably the right one at the time, and I'm sure the Honda bosses realised that an entirely in-house approach was unlikely to continue to be successful in the immediate term.

Interesting point about the 1.5 litre engines, but I think the Honda chassis were still markedly behind the times to make up for the superiority of their engines to ensure they wouldn't have become dominant.

Surtees is interesting, the only driver Honda respected other than Senna. It didn't take much convincing by Surtees for the Honda board to go with his ideas which is partly a reflection of how they viewed him and partly reflected the lack of confidence they had in their own designs.


All very true, but there does seem to be something of a pattern of major Japanese car manufacturers not quite 'getting' motorsport outside their own shores, unless major outside involvement is brought in. That said, there are of course plenty of other countries that have also failed to produce competitive F1 teams.

One noticeable exception of course is with motorbike racing where they have definitely 'got' motorsport and have dominated utterly. However I can't recall off-hand a single case of a Japanese company dominating any four wheeled event without a European based partner.

One thing I had heard which seems to be true is that Japanese companies find the politics side utterly baffling and often feel excluded and discriminated against. I heard from one engineer from a bike team that they simply weren't able to fight political games because it wasn't what they were used to before complaining bitterly about Ducati's use of 1 litre V-twins vs Japanese 750cc in-line fours in Motorbike racing in the late 90s and the utter inability of the Japanese teams to have the capacity gap reduced. Eventually the issue was resolved when Honda produced the SP-1 which was a litre capacity V-twin and dominated Ducati but switching engine formats was an indication that they had failed to win the political battle.

[Malbec]

Better than BAR ever did? BAR's 2004 season was generally clearly better than Honda's in 2006, despite failing to win a race. And in the second half of 2005 BAR was quite competitive too, building a good platform for 2006. Changes - like Honda's takeover - do not have an immediate effect, it takes about half a year or even a full year to see the real results. Also when Willis was replaced with Nakamura (I think it's a direct result of Honda's involvement, somehow doubt such change would have happened in BAR), Honda stayed strong in the second half of the year and we only saw the consequencies this year.

Sorry when people refer to BAR I keep thinking about BAR pre-2003 with the switchover from Pollock to Prodrive which resulted in a large structural change. The change in ownership between 2004 and 2005 was just that and didn't signify any change in management structure so I don't see how a mere change in name and ownership is meant to signify anything.

I still feel the windtunnel issue serves better than any other single reason for explaining the poor performance of the car this year. All other areas of the car appeared to perform well which appears to back that point up.

[BDunnell]

One thing I had heard which seems to be true is that Japanese companies find the politics side utterly baffling and often feel excluded and discriminated against.

A lot seems to become clear when one considers that.

I also wonder whether the Japanese manufacturers have quite got their heads round the machinations of the driver and designer markets, though this could be an entirely incorrect thought.

[BDunnell]

Sorry when people refer to BAR I keep thinking about BAR pre-2003 with the switchover from Pollock to Prodrive which resulted in a large structural change. The change in ownership between 2004 and 2005 was just that and didn't signify any change in management structure so I don't see how a mere change in name and ownership is meant to signify anything.


I would be rather surprised at a Japanese takeover not resulting in changes of some sort. The implementation of changes to structures and working practices is, after all, fairly characteristic of Japanese companies.

[Malbec]

I would be rather surprised at a Japanese takeover not resulting in changes of some sort. The implementation of changes to structures and working practices is, after all, fairly characteristic of Japanese companies.

IIRC Prodrive's contract with BAR/Honda included some clause that the management structure wouldn't be changed for x number of years following any buyout. Nick Fry was the nominated candidate to replace David Richards in such a situation.

That would explain why Nick Fry is still in his position after an infinite number of gaffes and team failures over the last few years.

[Malbec]

A lot seems to become clear when one considers that.

I also wonder whether the Japanese manufacturers have quite got their heads round the machinations of the driver and designer markets, though this could be an entirely incorrect thought.

I believe that with Toyota marketing concerns are at the core of their driver selections. Having a latin driver alongside a north European driver appears to be one of their priorities to appeal to both parts of Europe and to South America. With Honda I don't know if there is a preference although the team appears to favour Brazilian drivers after Senna.

With the political issue I'm not sure if Japanese teams discriminate between the various governing parties and the EEC. I do recall that Toyota were extremely angry that the Carina E was classified as an imported product despite being built within the EU and having a higher local content than the Chrysler Voyager which was assembled in Austria and classified as an EU product. This of course resulted in both tariffs and production numbers counting towards the import quotas imposed on Japanese companies at the time.

[BeeJ_UK]

Honda seem to be getting the message on how to do F1

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2007/11/12/smgars112.xml

[markabilly]

Since Honda seems to have just hired Ross Brawn--
Maybe they just did.......


OOOPPPS FERRARI, u blew that one!!!

[john45]

I think next time Toyota will get more than 50 points,and I hope Honda also gget more points than this years,

[Valve Bounce]

Honda must get away from having principals from Japan interfering in their rcaes like they did at Rouen in 1968. Soichiro Honda himself insisted in the team racing a new and untried magnesium bodied car in the French GP and when Surtees rejected the car as unsafe, Jo Schlesser was offered the drive with horrifying results. Here's the story: http://www.grandprix.com/gpe/rr167.html

I used to have a picture from MOTOR magazine, which showed the remains of the car after the fire - there was little left save the engine and a few bits of metal.

Let's hope the likes of Ross Brawn will insulate the team completely from the management of Honda from Japan.

[BDunnell]

I think Ross Brawn could be the man to take Honda forward in F1. If he's not able to, I reckon it would be clear (any specific circumstances permitting, naturally) that the blame lies somewhere else, given Brawn's pedigree. I hope he manages to make a real success of it.

[jens]

Toyota's activites are really disappointing me. While Honda hires (or tries to hire) top specialists, then Toyota does absolutely nothing to improve the situation. :(

[Malbec]

Honda must get away from having principals from Japan interfering in their rcaes like they did at Rouen in 1968. Soichiro Honda himself insisted in the team racing a new and untried magnesium bodied car in the French GP and when Surtees rejected the car as unsafe, Jo Schlesser was offered the drive with horrifying results. Here's the story: http://www.grandprix.com/gpe/rr167.html

I used to have a picture from MOTOR magazine, which showed the remains of the car after the fire - there was little left save the engine and a few bits of metal.

Let's hope the likes of Ross Brawn will insulate the team completely from the management of Honda from Japan.

Thats a good point but Soichiro Honda took full responsibility and a) withdrew Honda from further F1 racing, b) abandoned both magnesium and air cooled engines from both motorsports and roadcars (he had previously overruled his engineers and pushed aircooled engines as the propulsion system of the future) and c) retired from active management within the company.

Not many other businesspeople would take responsibility in quite the same way.

[Hondo]

Is it at all possible that part of the Japanese racing/marketing strategy is build a car so good that it matters very little who drives the car and as a result little importance is given to the driver's feedback for individual preferences?