May.22.2003 "Dome F1 Adventure Behind The Scene Story"Episode 6
"Where was HONDA heading to?"

It was in the height of summer. I went to the hotel where Mark's wife was waiting for me. During the seven long hours, we gave information to each other as much as possible and we started making a concrete plan based on our conversation from the next day. Our fundamental plan to carry out test programs in 1999 and participate in race from 2000 stayed the same as before. The difference between our plan and ordinary car manufacturers' is that they had a budget and enough lead time. We set up a goal to complete the test chassis by September in 1999 and we had to build up a structure gradually for both equipment and human resource in England as well as Kyoto headquarter as the main base. Though we found some candidate for the base in England, we drew up a budget based on ex-Benetton company, which was suitable for our project scale-wise, and was still vacant then.
Stoddart was involved in this project during this initial phase and we also examined his European aviation base where Tyrell once planned to build a wind tunnel facility.
Our test program including 3 tests in Japan, 7 in Europe was estimated well over 1 billion yen but we cut down the cost as much as possible to the minimum. We also tried to include the cost of test chassis as a prototype of next chassis in the year 2000 budget in order to persuade partner companies. When we finished putting together a working draft, we headed for the first meeting in Holland in September. We met Mark in Amsterdam and talked with him based on the draft we brought. As we had already told him the outline on the phone several times, it seemed to be no big disagreement between us and our 2-day meeting went on quite well. Well, except for engine…………. We cannot go anywhere without facing the engine issue. I told him we wanted to start the project and we were to accept even Cosworth engine. I tried to persuade him and explained from every aspect but it was impossible for Mark to decide on his own, as he was just a representative of consortium consisted of several companies in different business categories. Though he said he agreed with our plan himself, he said if we were to use Cosworth engine, we would not be able to persuade or receive approval of all members who wanted to utilize F1 sponsorship as their core promotion activity.
Here we were again… Mugen, Yamaha, Ferrari, Mercedes or Renault engines were welcome. If it was sponsors' request, we had no alternative but to negotiate with them. Having said that, Honda's situation was changing on a daily bases and things seemed to be more complicated. I was reluctant to talk about such project with Honda and then Mugen seriously as the situation seemed to be not right.

Autumn had come. We heard a lot of different stories about HRD but we could not imagine everything Honda had planned was going well judging from the situation in Japan. Nobody knew what was going on and had any clue what was going to happen. We knew Rupert started employing people who used to work for Tyrell, McLaren or Jordan and found out that they were outsourcing chassis parts. These facts were not enough to persuade us to believe.
Understandably HRD contacted Mark's group and we were shown their exquisite presentation kit. Even this beautifully made presentation kit could not persuade us. I have to say it was fortunate because their group could have side-switched to Honda. They were still with us but they wouldn't agree unless we solve the engine issue. I was facing the dilemma. It was too dangerous to proceed the project in prospect of getting an engine we could not guarantee. I was hanging tough to push Cosworth engine while we start examining Supertec.
Honda's F1 challenge was now becoming rather a fact than a rumor among people in racing industry in Europe. If I said anything against the rumor, people would give me such compassionate look as if they were sorry that I wasn't told anything about it because Honda were reluctant to say anything about their project to Dome. Mark and the others must have been anxious. President Hayashi and I made it obvious that we had a negative idea and attitude towards their project even after Honda revealed the pure white F1 chassis by Dallara and started testing it.
There was no doubt people were very suspicious of us. When the announcement of withdraws during the test in Spain came out, we received so many calls from many countries to express their astonishment. Now they believe what we kept saying but this didn't mean we could get an engine. The crucial stage was just starting from there.

But where was HONDA heading to???

Tadashi Sasaki