Honda Update, the Big News Is…..there Is No News!

I recently wrote an article in which I attempted to assess the possible buyers of Honda F1 Racing.  This article is a short update of the Honda situation, (from what I can find out), and also an "official" response for readers of Saraswathi Sirigina’s great article “Alien Speak: B/R Blasts Its Way to the Races”.  I was unfortunately unable to give her an interview due to the simple fact that I wasn’t in the mood.

Reading my most recent copy of "Autosport" it seems that non of us are going to get an answer to the "Honda" question until the end of January; (which is of course, Honda’s own deadline).

My article concluded that Honda’s best, and most likely buy would have been Prodrive.  With Slim out of the picture, I assumed Vijay Mallya would also prove to be a speculation snowball.  However, rather worryingly for me and all Honda fans, "Autosport" suggests that Mallya is still a strong contender. 

The problem is that the Force India boss would not be riding in on a charger to breath life into the team I love so much.  Rather, he would snap up the fantastic Brackley facilities to bolster his Force India team.  Less of a knight in shining armour, more of a pillaging Viking!

The small segment in my magazine only mentions the prodrive possibility in passing and seems to suggest that Honda’s greatest chance lies with Greek shipping magnate Achilleas Kallakis. Unfortunately, at the time I wrote my last article, I couldn’t find anything significant out about Kallakis or his business; not even on Wikipedia! 

The problem is: I still can’t find anything out about him! He apparently had a biography on IMDB. Wiki let me down for the second time, and if you type his name into google, you only get tiny snippets that tell you little more than you already know. Basically all I can find out is that he owns a Greek shipping company and is pretty rich!

On the surface, he sounds like a great investor; a rich bloke with a company to advertise. Now all he has to do is buy the bloody team! Please!

That’s pretty much all I have to say. I am getting increasingly worried about the lack of information or progress.  (The Honda website by the way is useless for news updates, despite being one of the better team web sites.) 

Time is running out, Ferrari will be releasing their car on Monday, and apart from Toro Rosso, and Force India (both TBA), the latest release date is Red Bull in early February. (This is a very late release date, but Newey seems to like arriving after everybody else!)

If we still haven’t heard anything by February, I’m afraid you can expect a very sad article from me.  The state of Japanese motor sport involvement at the moment is depressing!

With Toyota long dead in WRC, Subaru and Suzuki now gone; added to Honda in F1 and Kawasaki in Moto GP, as a Japanese motor fan I’m going to go mad.  People, I believe Japanese cars are the best! Buy Japanese! Help get Japan back on the grid!