Dec.02.2003 "Dome F1 Adventure Behind The Scene Story"Episode 7
"The purchase project against our will"

Eventually, Honda decided to start the 3rd F1 project as an engine supplier, whose system was same with the 2nd one. Honda announced that they supplied their engine to BAR, which had purchased Tyrell, and that they provided their technical skills and information about chassis as well. I have had no idea what kind of technical skills and how Honda gives them to BAR, which is mainly comprised of the English who have strong confidence in their own experiences and abilities and would not take the advise from the Japanese who live in the edge of Orient and have little experience. Further, I doubt the Honda staffs can have such a special situation easily between Honda and BAR not only as an engine supplier but as a technical adviser of chassis, because Honda had been instructed to behave themselves only as an engine supplier by Ron Dennis in their 2nd F1 project with Mclaren. But I presume Honda only announced to offer their technical skills to BAR in order to keep up their appearances.
Recently, F1 teams cannot manufacture competitive racing cars without close and good communication between the chassis constructor and the engine supplier. Therefore, I think such concept of Honda was not wrong way, but that Honda will not be able to become a technical adviser of chassis easily, unless they adopt the way used by BMW and Mercedes that purchased substantial stocks of Williams and Mclaren, and intensified the authority of engine suppliers. If Honda does not follow the same way as BMW and Mercedes, it would be so hard for Honda to become a good technical adviser even though they assert they have had little experience but had superior technical skills. I think it would be no point that Honda, which was instructed by Ron Dennis how to show suitable behaviors as an engine supplier, connects with the English who only listen to but ignore the advise from others and acts like "Would you mind using this part we developed?".
One Japanese writer mentioned when he met a distinguished English and shook hands, the English person said to him "Japan has their history" as a compliment. This didn't mean "Japan has their history, so Japan is great country!", but "Japan has their history, so it is better than nothing." When I read it, I thought Japanese should understand this sense of English so that Japanese get along with English. I have many good English friends, of course, and I never accuse all English. Although people from other counties also might feel Japanese not-understandable and disagreeable in many situations, I think there is a huge difference in terms of sensitivity between Japanese car manufacturer and English F1 team, and this is more serious than miscommunication of languages.

In any case, the 3rd F1 project of Honda is ending up with participating in F1 not as a team manufacture supplying both chassis and engine, that is as ALL Honda Team, but as only an engine supplier to BAR. As a consequence, the meaning of the existence of HRD is getting weak and we have had the rumor that HRD quits their activities and retires from the challenge to enter F1, because HRD holds over 80 staffs for establishing its own F1 team and have already spent much budget on it.
However the members gathering to HRD, mainly comprised of former Tyrell, cannot accept this unreasonable decision. I can easily imagine the awful regrets of Ruppert and Harvey Postlethwaite family, who has rejected to be a subsidiary of BAR and hoped to re-establish their own team, because their great efforts to establish their own F1 team were spoiled, and what's worse, the team to which Honda determined to supply engine was BAR with Craig Pollock, who had purchased Tyrell. Barney Ecclestone felt sympathy with them, and I heard he had advised in some aspects because of his fear about their future. With the support from Barney, they began to prepare for getting the 12th qualification to enroll in F1 one way or another.
On the other hand, Craig Pollock had a problem with FIA about 2 tobacco brand issue of British American Tobacco. He had a plan to establish one more team by getting 12th qualification to enter F1 with Mugen engine for the solution of this 2 tobacco brand issue.
But Craig had conflicted with Barney about 2tabacco brand issue, so Barney didn't have any intention to give him the 12th qualification for F1 at all. Additionally, owing to Barney's anger about the sudden change of Honda's F1 project and his sympathy to former Tyrell staffs as described above, there was still a little chance that Ruppert could obtain the 12th qualification for F1. As a matter of fact, we received the offer through Mark that we tie up with Ruppert, but we could not easily agree with this suggestion, considering the current circumstances. Also, it was no doubt that many applications were brought to Barney by some parties including Toyota, so if Ruppert didn't suggest an effective resolution within a week or so, he would be likely to lose his tiny chance.
I wondered why Ruppert, although he was only an employee of HRD, took such a significant position, but the only thing I could imagine was that Ruppert was taken significant and responsible role on his shoulder by Honda due to the fact that Honda had to start this project by themselves in the unsure situation.
As for the Ruppert's plan, based upon the original plan by Tyrell, he considered to utilize the 6,000 square foot facility which would be established next to the head office of The European Aviation and where the wind tunnel was planned to be constructed. As the European Aviation was one of the sponsor partners of Mark, Ruppert requested some cooperation to Mark including a sponsor fund.
Mark hoped that we succeeded to the 12th qualification by obtaining the engine supply from Mugen immediately and utilizing their facilities, stuffs and systems. Concerning operation cost, it had been certain that the total amount of budget from their partner groups was substantial, but some of them began to feel impatient; for example, one of these partners had left the group and switched their support to a golf tournament since they became frustrated that the F1 project wouldn't realize easily for a while. Although the problems would not come up to surface very soon since the enterprises, which are the center of the project, have still confirmed their cooperation for the project, in any case, we were on the stage that we had to make some decisions. Nevertheless, we could never imagine we succeeded to HRD members and their facilities, regardless of the fact that we would like to offer a help to Ruppert somehow.
Time went by, and when Mark was on the edge of his impatient, the suggestion to purchase Minardi team was brought up by Barney, who told Mark he could handle an engine issue. We had already taken the tie up with Minardi into consideration and suggested Mark to do so. However, he denied our proposal because he considered the tie up might hurt the image and he wanted to start this project with brand-new image. But we couldn't ignore this proposal because it actually came from Barney; in addition, if we accepted this proposal, we could make clear our biggest problem about the engine supply, so we had no choice but to accept the offer. Above all, as Mark couldn't make the partner groups wait any longer, any staff of this project started to focus on the purchase of Minardi.

Tadashi Sasaki