Honda's Earth Dreams Shattered
Sunday 7th December 2008 For a motorsport season that saved its biggest drama for the final seconds of the final race, the announcement that Honda are quitting F1 saved the biggest surprise till last. On Friday they announced that they were dramatically scaling back their F1 activities till March of next year, after which they hope to have found a buyer for the team. With global car sales suddenly falling off a cliff the world over, should it have been such a shock? Honda sales are down and they are shutting their massive Swindon factory for February and March of next year. BMW sales are down 25% year-on-year and that's only going to get worse. And FIA President Max Mosley has been banging on for years that unless F1 cuts its costs manufacturers are going to leave. In a way he's right and in a way he's wrong. Even Honda didn't see this one coming and the company's reaction was a management firefighting decision and an ...