Honda won’t get the FIA rescue for free. The organization of Formula 1 approved a series of measures aimed at pushing Honda to quickly improve its performance, but if the other teams approved them, it was only with one condition: that when Honda is back to form, it must repay the loan. It won’t be a gift.
Honda will have to repay both the development hours the FIA has gifted them and the millions from the budget cap. Behind it lies a whole elaborate plan revealed by the British outlet The Race, and it has only been carried out for one reason: there was fear in Formula 1 that Honda would leave.
The Formula 1 feared that Honda would leave the world championship
This is neither a bailout nor a lever. The FIA’s aid to Honda to pull it out of the pit of Formula 1 will be a loan. In other words, Honda will have to repay in the future all the advantages it obtains now in order to achieve decent performance as soon as possible. At least the interest has been forgiven for Honda.
According to Jon Noble in the British publication The Race, who asserts that the teams set one condition to approve Honda’s rescue: that they would return everything won. How will they do it? Through a three-year compensatory system by which their budget cap and their development hours will be reduced.
From the moment Honda settles at a level equal to the rest of the engine manufacturers, its potential will be curtailed. The extra 19 million dollars now allocated to it under the budget cap will be reduced and spread over the next three seasons, though Honda will at least be the one to decide how it is distributed.
As for the 230 extra hours of work that they will receive with the extension of the ADUO rules to a 10% deficit relative to the best engine, Honda will also have to repay those hours over the coming years. In other words, it will be able to work less on its engine once it is on par with the rest. And some feared that Honda would have too much of an advantage.
Furthermore, as revealed in the article, the reason why both the FIA and the rest of the teams approved these extraordinary measures with such urgency is that they feared Honda would give up and leave Formula 1. In fact, Aston Martin itself could have broken with Honda due to the urgency of results and the reluctance to go through a saga like McLaren’s in 2015.
It seems that everyone in Formula 1 is determined that Honda improves very soon. But beyond that there will be a glass ceiling in its own debts.
Images | Honda, Aston Martin
