Honda Not Frustrated with Missing Out on F1 Titles

Honda put a huge amount of money into building a competitive Formula One car, yet they never got to enjoy the huge success recorded by their former F1 operations in 2009. Ross Brawn managed to design a great car last year and struggled to get it on the Australian Grand Prix grid, but it was all worth it in the end, as he walked away with both titles this year.

Not only that, but the team also has a good chance of finishing 1-2 in the drivers' classification as well, which could translate into one of the most dominating performances recorded by a Formula One team in history. And this huge amount of success has its roots back in 2008, a year that Ross Brawn and the Brackley based team used solely to design and develop the title-winning BGP 001.

Looking back at their decision to withdraw from the sport at the end of last year due to the economic downturn, Honda's president and CEO Takanobu Ito doesn't seem to have any regrets. Well, let's just say that's his official position on the matter, as any other individual would probably argue against it.

“(I have) no regrets. After our withdrawal, we've seen our team doing extremely well. The reason why I say this is because of all the efforts we put into the team prior to our withdrawal that led to this result,” said Ito in an interview with Autoweek.

“Honda is very proud of the fact that we were able to make such a smooth withdrawal based on a very well-thought out plan.... I think we did very well with the withdrawal and after the withdrawal; we managed very quickly to inject all our resources into environmental technology development. (We are) very proud the management was so speedy in making this change,” added the Japanese official.

We're not saying he's not right, it's just that Brawn GP this year showed Honda how they could have won a couple of championship crowns on a very low budget. Considering that the money for the 2009 car had already been spent by Honda, continuing in the sport on a low-budget strategy would have probably been the smartest thing to do.

Ito insisted, however, that the decision to withdraw from F1 was correct at the time, as the love for Formula One racing did not exceed the values on which Honda guides its steps as a company.

“We do love Formula 1 racing, but even more than that, we had to think about our company; following the (economic crisis) our management environment had truly deteriorated, also due to the need to comply with environmental needs, (which meant) we had to develop new technologies. So this came first,” added Ito.