Honda Stay in F1, Win Championship

Confession is said to be good for the soul, so I will start by admitting that the second part of my headline is pure fiction.

I wrote the part about Honda winning the F1 championship as a means of catching your eye, and it worked, didn't it?

Attention-grabbing techniques were part of a great course I took, although no mention was made of honesty or ethics.

On that course I was also taught that gee-whiz statistics are a good method of seizing an audience by the throat. Do you ever have to address groups of people?

Then you surely want to have their rapt attention from the start, and there is no finer way than by announcing that 27.2% of them will be dead before Christmas.

Needless to say, you can invent the numbers as you need them. People believe statistics, they just do, and you will never be challenged.

Thus far I have given you some handy hints on audience management, as well as partially explaining my headline. Now I move on to the (possibly) truthful part of my headline, Honda staying in F1.

We are now very close to the day when F1 cars and support personnel are loaded onto aircraft bound for Melbourne and the first F1 fixture of 2009.

Having failed to finder a buyer for their team, it is becoming clear that Honda will at least keep enough money going into it to permit attendance.

The 2009 Honda does not have a Japanese engine, Mercedes will supply them this season at a cost of about $10M. That is chicken-feed in F1 terms, and one of the least of the team's problems.

It seems to be the game-plan that the team must make an immediate impact, showing obvious improvement over 2008, thereby enabling Martin Fry and cohorts to secure funding for a management buy-out.

Clearly it will not be good enough for Button and Another to be cruising around in convoy with the Force India boys; there will have to be clear podium potential shown.

As a long-term F1 fan, I want the team to survive, and I wish them well. But in my head dwells a cynical goblin who thinks that the same crew who made a hash of 2008 are unlikely to be sufficiently improved this year.

In conclusion, I do want to advise you that 87.9% of people who pick this for article of the day will receive 98.4% of my gratitude. Do it quick though, 6.9% of you will be dead tomorrow.