Formula 1’s Aston Martin team principal Adrian Newey says his group was blindsided by the fact its then-incoming works power unit partner Honda had only retained about 30% of its original world championship-winning staff going into the project.
Sounds like things at Honda have been a mess for longer than anyone but the heads of Aston Martin knew of.
Aston Martin team principal Adrian Newey said Friday his group was blindsided by the fact its then-incoming works power unit partner Honda had only retained about 30% of its original world championship-winning staff going into the project.
He was at Red Bull when they bought the entire Honda/HRC UK facilities and workforce. How on earth was he blindsided by this after moving to Aston?
It seems like the assumption was that the experienced people at Honda’s Japan base in Sakura who had developed the F1 engine for Red Bull, would join Honda’s new engine program for Aston Martin. And AM never bothered to check that assumption. When in reality these people had been assigned to completely different Honda projects and were not working on the engine at all
I’m not sure we know enough about his/their exit from Red Bull to know for sure how much information he had about an outgoing manufacturer. IIRC Red Bull were recruiting heavily from Mercedes and other teams PU divisions too, not just bringing in everyone from Honda.
I would assume Aston Martin trusted Honda to rebuild with people who had previous experience as much as possible and for whatever reason that didn’t happen to the extent they expected. The way he’s quoted in the article makes it sound like the people at AM didn’t do their due diligence until it was already too late, which is absolutely on them.
I’m not sure Newey had any oversight into Red Bull’s Powertrain division. And IIRC Newey was focused on his hypercar project when RBPT has been founded.
I’m not sure Newey had any oversight into Red Bull’s Powertrain division.
Neither had I and I still learned about the broad strokes of the personnel transfer of Honda to Red Bull PT. Pretty big thing to miss when you’re in the top 5 of that company.
He was at Red Bull when they bought the entire Honda/HRC UK facilities and workforce. How on earth was he blindsided by this after moving to Aston?
It seems like the assumption was that the experienced people at Honda’s Japan base in Sakura who had developed the F1 engine for Red Bull, would join Honda’s new engine program for Aston Martin. And AM never bothered to check that assumption. When in reality these people had been assigned to completely different Honda projects and were not working on the engine at all
I’m not sure we know enough about his/their exit from Red Bull to know for sure how much information he had about an outgoing manufacturer. IIRC Red Bull were recruiting heavily from Mercedes and other teams PU divisions too, not just bringing in everyone from Honda.
I would assume Aston Martin trusted Honda to rebuild with people who had previous experience as much as possible and for whatever reason that didn’t happen to the extent they expected. The way he’s quoted in the article makes it sound like the people at AM didn’t do their due diligence until it was already too late, which is absolutely on them.
Honda’s UK team was for the hybrid unit, the Mercedes HPP poaches for the ICE. That’s well known. In fact, only a year ago (pretty late) Honda bought back their original UK factory from Red Bull https://www.motorsport-total.com/formel-1/news/fabrik-von-red-bull-uebernommen-honda-legt-wieder-in-europa-los-25030404 (in German, the first source I could find).
I’m not sure Newey had any oversight into Red Bull’s Powertrain division. And IIRC Newey was focused on his hypercar project when RBPT has been founded.
Neither had I and I still learned about the broad strokes of the personnel transfer of Honda to Red Bull PT. Pretty big thing to miss when you’re in the top 5 of that company.