Honda’s 2008 performance wasn't much of an improvement over the previous campaign – but with the newly recruited Ross Brawn targeting resources towards the planned ’09 breakthrough, the team stoically endured it as a necessary sacrifice with the promise of better days ahead.

Now the team’s very existence is in doubt following the Japanese car giant’s sudden decision to pull the plug on its costly F1 programme.


After two abysmal campaigns, 2009 was meant to be the year that Honda’s Formula 1 project finally came good.

Ross Brawn, enticed by the challenge of transforming the Brackley squad into a regular front-runner, had just completed his first year at the helm and had presided over a total restructuring of the operation.

Deciding to sacrifice development on an inherited 2008 car which was a fundamentally flawed design, Brawn opted for an early focus on next year’s model when F1 would embrace a radical set of new technical rules.

The team had already tested its kinetic energy recovery system and early 2009-spec wing package in winter testing and Brawn was sure the definitive RA109 would be a “front-runner”.

All this meant that for the first time since its takeover of the BAR team in 2006, Honda was ahead of the game.

Then came the bombshell.

On Friday 5 December the main company board in Tokyo, reacting to the dramatic slump in its worldwide car sales amid the deepening global financial downturn, announced that it was pulling out of F1 with immediate effect.

There had been no warning and the harsh global realities meant no sentiment for the pending promise either.

The Brackley team now has to find a new owner before March or face closure.

But while hope remains that a rescue package can be put together and the team’s strong 2009 prospects not completely lost, Honda’s withdrawal means the final chapter to its second era as an F1 constructor has already been written.

And statistically its 2008 season doesn’t make good reading.

In terms of championship position, Honda fared even worse than last year and slipped to ninth in the constructors’ standings, with only the point-less Force India behind.

Brawn’s arrival had come too late to influence the technical direction of the RA108, with even the development upgrades he oversaw during the season only able to add so much.

Drivers Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello found the latest challenger easier to manage than the evil-handling RA107 but still spent most of the season struggling to make up for its aerodynamic and grip deficiencies.

Even the sprouting of ‘dumbo wings’ and other comical-looking bodywork appendages couldn’t cure the problems.

Initially there were fears that the team had unfathomably managed to come up with a new car even worse than the 2007 version as the team plumbed new depths in pre-season, before a major new aero package introduced at its final private pre-season Jerez test proved a breakthrough.

Actually it’s easy to forget that Honda did enjoy a promising start to the season.

In Melbourne, Barrichello and Button sandwiched Renault’s Fernando Alonso to set the 11th and 13th fastest times in qualifying and Rubens would have finished a fine sixth had he not been disqualified for running the red light in the pit lane.

Button then made the pole position shootout in Bahrain, before officially finishing sixth himself in Spain.

The RA108 remained competitive enough for consistent Q2 appearances throughout the first half of the season but it was around the time of the French round in June that Honda made it clear that it was shifting focus to 2009.

A new rear suspension package from Hungary aside, the ‘treading water’ policy resulted in the inevitable slide down the grid as midfield rivals continued to push forwards.

The slump was so alarming that between them Button and Barrichello were knocked out in the first phase of qualifying eight and nine times respectively over the final 11 rounds.

One thing the team’s worsening form did achieve was to intensify the ever close battle between the two drivers as the pair had increasingly little else to play for.

Their qualifying head-to-head record remained incredibly tight (Barrichello edging it 10-8), but it was Rubens’s performances over a race distance that often caught the eye.

The 36-year-old – who surpassed Riccardo Patrese’s F1 appearance record at the Turkish GP – found the desire to rebound from the first scoreless season of his career to outscore Button overall for the first time – 11 points to three.

While Button didn’t add to his points from Barcelona, Barrichello finished in the top eight three times, including a drive that rolled back the years to a stunning third at a rain-hit Silverstone.

It was a result based on a shrewd tyre gamble too, as the Brazilian made the call to switch to extreme weather tyres as the rain worsened, sensing an opportunity to pick off struggling rivals.

Button took the same gamble, but fell off the road.

The mistake summed up an unusually messy campaign for the normally silky-smooth Briton who, after earning wide paddock praise for regularly overcoming the limitations of his car in 2006/7, couldn’t, perhaps understandably, do it again in another difficult year.

Still, the team still clearly rated him as the man to get the job done when its car eventually hit the front and duly signed a new multi-year agreement with him in October.

Meanwhile Barrichello, perhaps unluckily, found himself in a battle for the other seat with young GP2 compatriots Bruno Senna and Lucas di Grassi.

Now Honda’s shock withdrawal has changed all of that.

Even if a buyer for the team is found, it remains to be seen whether the first car designed and built under Brawn’s renowned technical leadership could reach the competitive levels he thought it was set for.

But what will be worse is if the RA109 never sees the light of day.

So while Brackley tries to fight on, Honda’s latest Formula 1 story is over.

And for a manufacturer with such a proud heritage in the sport, it’s a much more subdued ‘sayonara’ than it would have wanted.

James Galloway [itv-f1.com]