So far only Albers slower than Button!!!
Discussion
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Locoblade said:
2priestsferrari said:
After this disgrace Button or Fry must go
I really hope the addition of Button into that comment was the beer talking because to say he should be sacked for Honda's inability to produce a decent car is laughable!
Given he was more than happy to take the position (and the money) of leading the team for the next few years, what part do you think he plays?? Do you think he just pitches up at GP weekend and puts a few laps in??
No he would have been part of the conversation that took the 07 car and binned the old one. Fry and Button its like the blind leading the blind and Honda are loosing decades of sporting cred due to these clowns.
2priestsferrari said:
No he would have been part of the conversation that took the 07 car and binned the old one. Fry and Button its like the blind leading the blind and Honda are loosing decades of sporting cred due to these clowns.
You really have no idea do you.
I bet everything is a conspiracy to you as well.2priestsferrari said:
Given he was more than happy to take the position (and the money) of leading the team for the next few years, what part do you think he plays?? Do you think he just pitches up at GP weekend and puts a few laps in??
No he would have been part of the conversation that took the 07 car and binned the old one. Fry and Button its like the blind leading the blind and Honda are loosing decades of sporting cred due to these clowns.
As FWD said, you really don't have a clue Im afraid. Of course he's got responsibilities to develop the car to the best of his ability outside of a race weekend (as has Rubens), but as the saying goes you can't polish a turd. If the engineering / design concept of the new car is wrong, or there's something fundamentally wrong with the way the engineers are interpreting wind tunnel information etc, then there's absolutely sod all the driver can do to make that car competitive. With your logic, Alonso should have been sacked from Minardi because they were consistently at the back of the grid and he didn't develop the car into a race winner.
To say that Nick Fry should go is also bollox. There have been so many changes at Brackley since they terminated the Prodrive contract and became Honda F1, that there is no continuity, other than Fry and Button, and some of the people in the boiler room.
The only way that they will ever succeed is to stabilise the design team, keep Honda Japan's meddling out of it, giving Nick Fry a free hand to run the team in the way that a F1 team is run.
This is why Toyota is such a waste of carbon fibre. Too much meddling from above.
This is why Ford/Jaguar was never any good - too much committee driven meddling from people who do not understand the business, and leading to a "is it me next" fear in the staff, who then take to stabbing each other in the back at every opportunity, which is far from the way to build a winning car.
Look at Ferrari in it's doldrum days, before Todt, Brawn, Byrne, Schumacher. It was a place that Fiat mechanics "did", and the staff turnover was stupid, and the success rate was.. well... look how many races Alesi (and various team mates) won (on merit).
QED.
The only way that they will ever succeed is to stabilise the design team, keep Honda Japan's meddling out of it, giving Nick Fry a free hand to run the team in the way that a F1 team is run.
This is why Toyota is such a waste of carbon fibre. Too much meddling from above.
This is why Ford/Jaguar was never any good - too much committee driven meddling from people who do not understand the business, and leading to a "is it me next" fear in the staff, who then take to stabbing each other in the back at every opportunity, which is far from the way to build a winning car.
Look at Ferrari in it's doldrum days, before Todt, Brawn, Byrne, Schumacher. It was a place that Fiat mechanics "did", and the staff turnover was stupid, and the success rate was.. well... look how many races Alesi (and various team mates) won (on merit).
QED.
Locoblade said:
2priestsferrari said:
Given he was more than happy to take the position (and the money) of leading the team for the next few years, what part do you think he plays?? Do you think he just pitches up at GP weekend and puts a few laps in??
No he would have been part of the conversation that took the 07 car and binned the old one. Fry and Button its like the blind leading the blind and Honda are loosing decades of sporting cred due to these clowns.
As FWD said, you really don't have a clue Im afraid. Of course he's got responsibilities to develop the car to the best of his ability outside of a race weekend (as has Rubens), but as the saying goes you can't polish a turd. If the engineering / design concept of the new car is wrong, or there's something fundamentally wrong with the way the engineers are interpreting wind tunnel information etc, then there's absolutely sod all the driver can do to make that car competitive. With your logic, Alonso should have been sacked from Minardi because they were consistently at the back of the grid and he didn't develop the car into a race winner.
Utter rubbish - bottom line is the 06 car (which is now at Aguri) is faster and at some point some genius said "hey lets bin this 06 car for the 07 model" - is that not correct??
Humm... what will you "buy buy" Mr. Fry??? 2priestsferrari said:
Utter rubbish - bottom line is the 06 car (which is now at Aguri) is faster and at some point some genius said "hey lets bin this 06 car for the 07 model" - is that not correct??
As I said on another thread if you have developed a car as far as it can go you build a new car with more potential.
If the new car at only 50% development is almost as quick as the fully developed old car then the new car is the way to go during a season as the old car will go off the pace and be left behind as the year goes on.
2priestsferrari said:
Locoblade said:
2priestsferrari said:
Given he was more than happy to take the position (and the money) of leading the team for the next few years, what part do you think he plays?? Do you think he just pitches up at GP weekend and puts a few laps in??
No he would have been part of the conversation that took the 07 car and binned the old one. Fry and Button its like the blind leading the blind and Honda are loosing decades of sporting cred due to these clowns.
As FWD said, you really don't have a clue Im afraid. Of course he's got responsibilities to develop the car to the best of his ability outside of a race weekend (as has Rubens), but as the saying goes you can't polish a turd. If the engineering / design concept of the new car is wrong, or there's something fundamentally wrong with the way the engineers are interpreting wind tunnel information etc, then there's absolutely sod all the driver can do to make that car competitive. With your logic, Alonso should have been sacked from Minardi because they were consistently at the back of the grid and he didn't develop the car into a race winner.
Utter rubbish - bottom line is the 06 car (which is now at Aguri) is faster and at some point some genius said "hey lets bin this 06 car for the 07 model" - is that not correct??
Nothing in locoblade's post is rubbish.
However, your assertion that Button is in any way responsible for not keeping last year's car would make me laugh if I didn't think you really meant it.
He would have been part of the conversation that said bin the old car and use the new one? You really, truly think so? What are you on? I need to know, so I can make sure I never take any of it...
2priestsferrari said:
Utter rubbish - bottom line is the 06 car (which is now at Aguri) is faster and at some point some genius said "hey lets bin this 06 car for the 07 model" - is that not correct??
No, its not.
Every team develops new cars each year and I bet quite a few if not all are slower to start with than their old car, but as FWD says there's no point in keeping an old car if its already reached its development potential even if it is initially a bit quicker!
Anyway, even if the '07 car turns out to be slower all season than the Aguri which I very much doubt, the decision to build an '07 car that was a radical departure from the previous car (which the Honda appears to be) is not a decision that the drivers will have had significant input into, so although Fry could eventually be in the firing line for being part of that decision making process, Button / Barrichello certainly won't be.
Yep I agree there is an argument to keep the old car for a while, but the decision is not nearly as simple as you make out, you can't just say the old one is a bit quicker at the moment therefore it must be raced.
With limited testing time you're always going to have to take the pain of developing the new car at some point, if they used the old car for the flyaway races they would effectively be treading water not developing the 07 car for 2 months, so in 4 races time, you're even further behind. At least by sticking with it you can hopefully develop the car and get it to a reasonable level earlier in the season, you may lose a few points early in the season but you're just as likely to gain them again later on, when the new car is better developed.
With limited testing time you're always going to have to take the pain of developing the new car at some point, if they used the old car for the flyaway races they would effectively be treading water not developing the 07 car for 2 months, so in 4 races time, you're even further behind. At least by sticking with it you can hopefully develop the car and get it to a reasonable level earlier in the season, you may lose a few points early in the season but you're just as likely to gain them again later on, when the new car is better developed.
2 points here..First the driver. I don't know but I'd imagine that Button is one of the highest paid individuals at Honda F1 and so I'd expect that during the winter briefings someone might have asked the guys opinion on what car he feels is giving him the better performance. Having got that feedback perhaps people like Fry can come to a conclusion over the 06 car verses the new 07 car.
Re: testing - I don't agree that they need to take pain with the new car. Testing in F1 is not really that limited. They test several times per week for many months pre-season and if that isn't enough to gain a benchmark what are they getting paid for??
They could have easily raced the 06 car for the flyaways, put the test team to hard work on the 07 car and picked it up in Europe...
Come on we are not talking a small gap here..In qualie the fastest time a Honda 07 car did was a 27.2, the 06 car was 26.7.
Re: testing - I don't agree that they need to take pain with the new car. Testing in F1 is not really that limited. They test several times per week for many months pre-season and if that isn't enough to gain a benchmark what are they getting paid for??
They could have easily raced the 06 car for the flyaways, put the test team to hard work on the 07 car and picked it up in Europe...
Come on we are not talking a small gap here..In qualie the fastest time a Honda 07 car did was a 27.2, the 06 car was 26.7.
If you actually followed winter testing closely, you'd know that there wasnt that many days before the start of the season to test. Most 07 cars are launched around the end of January so even if they tested every single week after that up to the GP week, that only gives teams 5 weeks of testing, not "many months". Also for various logistical reasons they cant just pick and choose to go testing whenever they like, all teams generally test at the same time at the same circuits, usually for maybe 3 days during a given week, but not every single week. I might be a bit out here but off the top of my head, this season Honda had a couple of days at Barcelona immediately after launch, then 3 days in Jerez (where it rained), then another 3 day test in Barcelona then finally a 6 day test in Bahrain before coming to Melbourne, so maybe 14-15 days in total.
Apart from that, there are other fundamental reasons why they couldnt possibly go back to the old car. For starters Honda themselves didn't put the old car through any of the FIA 2007 crash regulations so the old car as it was at the end of last season wouldn't have passed scrutineering in Melbourne, Aguri developed the chassis to pass the crash tests after they took ownership of the old car. Also because of the handover of the IP rights of the old car to Aguri, turning up with the same car as they have would have dragged the Honda team itself into the "customer car" row!
Other reasons might be simple logisitical things like having to pre-plan manufacturing of a stockpile of spare parts for each car which they would have only done for the new car, they couldnt just decide at the end of the final test 10 days before the grand prix that the old car was a bit quicker so they'd dust it off, respray it with this year's colours and go racing.
Do I need to go on?
Apart from that, there are other fundamental reasons why they couldnt possibly go back to the old car. For starters Honda themselves didn't put the old car through any of the FIA 2007 crash regulations so the old car as it was at the end of last season wouldn't have passed scrutineering in Melbourne, Aguri developed the chassis to pass the crash tests after they took ownership of the old car. Also because of the handover of the IP rights of the old car to Aguri, turning up with the same car as they have would have dragged the Honda team itself into the "customer car" row!
Other reasons might be simple logisitical things like having to pre-plan manufacturing of a stockpile of spare parts for each car which they would have only done for the new car, they couldnt just decide at the end of the final test 10 days before the grand prix that the old car was a bit quicker so they'd dust it off, respray it with this year's colours and go racing.
Do I need to go on?
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