Oliver WhiteLet’s be honest for a moment. Irrespective of whether you think Super Aguri deserved to have the plug pulled or not, it wasn’t handled very well by Honda. Not even for a moment. The giant corporation took action to reclaim the Aguri cars and told FOM beforehand that they wouldn’t be racing in Turkey and shouldn’t be allowed to enter the Istanbul Park circuit. And HondaF1 CEO Nick Fry has been talking to the press an awful lot recently about Super Aguri, a team which he has not, did not and will now not run.
I don’t understand how suddenly Nick Fry needs to be commenting on everything. Honda were our backers and he’s not the CEO of Honda. I have no interest in Nick Fry whatsoever and have no idea what he was talking about. Aguri Suzuki, speaking after he announced the end of Super Aguri.
While Fry has been spouting off his opinion on matters that don’t entirely concern him, his focus on his team has clearly dwindled. The fact that Honda took a beating last year probably made the Honda executives stand up and take notice of what their millions of dollars are actually being spent on. The fact that a nobody-in-comparison (Super Aguri) can come along and wipe the floor with the Goliath (Honda) for the best part of a year probably did Fry’s reputation no good whatsoever. Before this though, the team had gone through other difficulties, being banned for three races due to an illegal fuel-tank is a prime example of this.
Many folk on the internet feel that the acquisition of Ross Brawn to the team has temporarily saved Fry from receiving the boot earlier. But with Brawn heading up the Formula One operation, what are Honda paying Fry to do exactly? Talk about other teams in a demeaning way? Smile for the cameras and divert attention away from the poorly performing RA107 and RA108? Smooth-talk Jenson Button into staying with the team each time his contract comes up for renewal…?
I’m sure Fry does a lot with Honda, but given how the Super Aguri issue was handled, I’m wondering if Honda aren’t now thinking of other ways to save a bit of cash.
Image courtesy of Honda.
“but given how the Super Aguri issue was handled, I’m wondering if Honda aren’t now thinking of other ways to save a bit of cash.”
the thing is, we don’t know if nick was speaking on behalf of those at the top of the honda tree or not. my assumption is that he was in the loop and aguri wasn’t.
if nick looks bad and the aguri fans blame him, then that’ll suit honda and i doubt very much it’ll bother him. this way everybody wins and he gets extra kudos from the bosses for taking the flak.
i could be very wrong on this one, but i see fry in a stronger position as a result of this rather than a weaker one.
Yep ! I’ll buy that ! Nick is a manager where Nick is an engineer (with doubtless management qualities) and I do believe, like you, that Nick was speaking on behalf on Honda’s top executives. The japanese don’t talk to much and they probably are more than happy that someone else takes the blow. Future will tell anyway…
Seppuku comes to F1. So Nick Fry takes the bad publicity and gets the blame, nobody notices the faceless Honda board members standing behind him. Gratitude? Nah, once the belly is cut, the second lops off his head…
Yup, something tells me Clive is right. Nick Fry may not know that of course…
He may have taken the flak for the Honda board, but is it enough to save his own job? Methinks not. And given the reactions F1 fans are giving now, I’m pretty sure they’ll realize Nick won’t be missed all that much by the fans (especially when you compare him to, say, Ross Brawn).