It amazes me how much effort people take to try and discredit or put down other people on the Internet. To actually email the HR department at Sakura to figure out who I am, to that person, you need to find another hobby. So to all of those who think I’m a fraud or fake, just believe that I’m the head janitor at Sakura and my nephew is a part-time musubi-maker in the cafeteria. You might as well also stop reading here.
To the rest of you, I appreciate your kind words and this forum as I have mentioned is a form of entertainment and diversion for myself. I don’t think I will be posting for a while but will lurk from time to time. The internet has made the world so much smaller. This forum has allowed me to make a few close contacts and even meet one individual in person. Amazing! My contract with HRD ends this month and I am not going to continue. As I approach 70, I realize life is short and some of you know that my daughter has battled cancer twice and I plan on spending more time with her and the grandkids. I also have my personal automotive projects that have been neglected and need attending to. Enough about me.
I’ve always been known as a 反逆者 at Honda so I’m going post my opinion about this year’s PU and HRD in general. I was asked by a Honda enthusiast and journalist about this year’s PU and overall direction and here was my response from March 6th.
F1 has also changed immensely. Mostly the technology has become so complex that I don’t see how this translates to cost cutting. I suppose that eventually some of this technology might find its way into passenger cars but at what price? Can $150,000 ES devices be brought down to a level where it can be used in a $35,000 passenger car? I don’t see it even with economies of scale. At the end of day, everything is still petrol based. How does this translate to alternative fuels, etc.?
The current PU overall I think is very good and I am excited about it. But, lack of actual track testing it makes it difficult. Honda has not used test mules because mainly we don’t know when to stop. That is a fault. HRD is constantly trying to make improvements until the last moment and I struggle at times with this mentality. I was this way in the ‘80’s but I have changed. There comes a point where you need to concentrate on improving what you have built rather than constantly trying to build new versions. This between you and me is Honda’s biggest weakness at this point IMO. This IMO leads to lack of testing time for each upgrade. What is better, 5,000 hours of testing on 10 different versions or 10,000 hours of testing on 5 different versions? Arai-san especially thought the former. Then when I think okay this is good enough for now, some interpret that as quitting. So in this aspect, I get frustrated. My contract ends in 30 days and I will not renew. I am done with F1 as a consultant/engineer. It’s not fun anymore.
So I hope this PU can be exploited to its full potential. The power is there, the efficiency is there and as usual, reliability is the big question mark because mainly of what I have mentioned before. This of course has caused friction between us and McLaren and it is a very, very difficult partnership. I don’t know what the future lies but I know we have put tremendous effort into this PU. Almost everything is new. This is what IMO we should have built for 2015. Things will break. The latest failure was a valve-train issue stemming from an electrical problem. This is a problem that is being addressed currently and I think should be resolved before Melbourne.
