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They also just announced that will continue to be an IndyCar supplier for a long while. F1 power units (including the hybrid components) are more efficient than
by JshWright 6y ago
They also just announced that will continue to be an IndyCar supplier for a long while. F1 power units (including the hybrid components) are more efficient than the Indy counterparts. This isn't _actually_ about carbon-free anything... It's about F1 being expensive.
- gabereiser 6y agoIt’s also about positioning. Honda’s brand wasn't performing as well as they would like in F1. Probably in addition to it being expensive.
- JshWright 6y agoWhich is crazy, given the fact that Max Verstappen's Honda-powered Red Bull is the only car on the gird that can put up any challenge whatsoever against Mercedes and a Honda-powered Alpha Tauri _won_ at Monza (a circuit where engine performance is critical).
- smcl 6y agoEven more crazy is that when they had very their own team they disbanded it ... only for Ross Brawn to lead an MBO, create a "new" team and win both the Constructors Championship and the Drivers Championship THE VERY NEXT SEASON season before it was bought by Mercedes, who went on to do rather well. Honda were on the cusp of dominating F1 and decided "nahhh". I wonder if it's actually not that good for business - otherwise someone's gotta be kicking themselves.
- toyg 6y ago> I wonder if it's actually not that good for business It's actually pretty bad for business. Like European football, it's basically a money pit that generates good indirect returns only to the very top teams. That's why it struggles to keep 10 teams on the grid every year (of whom 3 are effectively "B-teams", one is half-owned by another's boss, one is driven by pilots managed by that same boss...). That's why manufacturers as massive as Honda and Toyota never stick around F1 for long: they come in, realize how much money and time they will really need to waste to get any hope of winning trophies, and just pull the plug.
- gabereiser 6y agoYeah, it’s economics. Mercedes and McLaren have wads of cash to throw at finding the peak performance for their cars. Honda is interested but doesn’t have the investment capital these “premiere” brands do. It’s the equivalent of new money at the yacht club. To belong is going to cost you more than just a membership.
- tibbydudeza 6y agoHamilton got a time penalty and that cost him the win at Monza but Max Verstappen like Alonso has that rare talent of extracting the maximum performance out of non-optimal car.
- mikey_p 6y agoYeah, but it's hard to shake the image of McLaren Honda and Alonso and Button suffering from 2015-2017. Those were some miserable races, and the stress was being publicly taken out on two well respected drivers towards the end of their careers.
- coliveira 6y agoIn Europe, environmental issues are seen as important. Not such in the USA.
- tibbydudeza 6y agoAnd Indycar is also going the hybrid route in 2023.
- yread 6y agoThe fuel consumption of the engines is 0.7% of the carbon footprint of F1 races (250k tons of CO2). Just by the virtue of not having to travel around the world all the time Indy has a much lower carbon footprint https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/50382898#:~:text=It https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/50382898#:~:text=It calculated the sport's total,Factories and facilities 19.3%25
- JshWright 6y agoI specified I was talking about the power units, not the series as a whole (since the power units are the part that Honda is involved with).