英伦广角 Issue 136 本田宣布退出F1

Well, we,we told the staff at the Honda we are pulling out of Formula One last night. Obviously that was a huge shock to them. But this morning that’s given way to a huge silly determination to succeed. The staff will be paid for at least the next three months. We have the money to progress the car to Melbourne. And the staff that I have just been speaking to are determined 1 we are all gonna get there. And, so we’ve had a couple of expressions of interest already in the team, and hopefully, this could be a whole new future for us.

We spoke 2 to your team principal Rose Brown earlier this morning, and he said this is a top-level F1 business with some extremely talented people, very good drivers and marvelous facilities. It’s just a matter of finding the right person. Who out there has 300 million pounds a year to invest in putting two cars on the grid 3?

Oh, firstly, I should emphasize that this is a completely different situation from other Formula One teams, sort of gone bust 4 in the past. This is a top line facility, possibly the best team in Formula One in terms of facilities, the people are outstanding and even Ross has technical hands that he is the best in the world. So, the car, those guys of design next year is a hugely attractive to outside buyers. Formula One is still a great spectacle. It’s up there 600 million fans a year watch Formula One. It’s up there with the Olympics. If you have a global product that you want to advertise, it’s still the best, and we gotta remember that, as I said ,we’ve had 2 or 3 global players contact us already, who are interested in a top-level team and it's gonna be tough, but I think there’s a good reason for hope for the future.

Just looking at the F1market place right now, will others be looking into what’s happened here at Honda and worrying about themselves now when, their backers may be pulling out too?

Clearly, that’s,that’s a big worry. And you know, many of the Formula One teams are owned by car manufacturers. As everyone knows, here in the UK, 40 percent reduction in car buying in the last month. That has huge impacts on, not just Honda, but the other car companies then and everyone’s gotta cut their cost to face. I said with all the other team owners yesterday, and we reduced the budgets for next year, potentially by, about 50 million Euros by cutting back testing, thinking about that, cutting back developments. So we are trying to respond very quickly to the economic situation. And hopefully all the Formula One teams are gonna have a secure future. We’ve got to find a way of seeing ourselves through the next couple of years, which, undoubtedly 5, for everyone, all are gonna be a bit tough.