F1 » Aguri future in doubt?

It would be a great pity if Super Aguri were to succumb to their success this season and the short-comings in the works Honda team.

Goes to show that this whole customer car/engine scenario is rather risky for these small teams if the start to embarrass the hand that feeds them. Toro Rosso should also be looking over their shoulders potentially in the future but at least they have the financial backing to stay afloat.

Super Aguri with an effective organational restructure will be on the grid next season. It would be another mark o the sport if they were not.

Kiran, I think Super Aguri beat Honda because Hondo got is spectacularly wrong in 2007. Hopefully, things will improve in 2008, at least so that they are equal. It should take Honda to 2009 before they recover from 2007. But I don't think Ferrari have to worry about Toro Rosso. Can you see Ferrari standing still for them if they came anywhere close to Ferrari.

In the normal world, this would be taken as a sign that you're not doing something right, so you work harder. I think Ferrari would tell Toro Rosso to back off, kinda like Ducati told Barros in MotoGP when he had the nerve to beat a works Ducati on his satelite Ducati.

Calvin,

Isn't Toro Rosso a sister car of the red bull team? Red bull use Reggie engines and Toro Rosso use Ferrari! Super Aguri use last years Honda and a Honda engine. Just a little different.

I never really liked the whole "B" team idea. Hopefully all these teams will fall by the wayside and be bought up by a new batch of privateeers with some fresh faces and ideas. The sport could use it for sure, and these guys will never be fighting for wins anyway they manage to work along the fringe of the rulebook. let's get some real teams building their own cars, even if they only end up filling the middle or tail end of the grid. That's all these "B" teams are achieving anyway.

Trent, it may be a little different, but I still can't see Ferrari staying quiet if Toro Rosso got anywhere near them. Not that they are in any danger of doing anyway. Kiran's post was about smaller teams embarrasing the hand that feeds them. We have Ferrari and Toro Rosso, Reggie and Red Bull, Honda and Super Aguri and Toyota and Williams. Well, in 2007 both Super Aguri and Williams did bite the hand that feeds them, and although Honda and Toyota may not have liked it, I believe that they would take it as a chanllenge to get better. Similarly with Reggie. I don't have the same feeing about Ferrari. But maybe things will be different now that JT isn't around.

Bob, recent F1 history is that a new team buys out an old team and starts tweaking their chassis etc. Very few really new, start from scratch teams have emerged. F1 is still very expensive and it would take several years for such a team to get competitive. So the likely scenario would be that new teams would just buy up the so called "B" teams and maybe start diverging. If you look at Jordan - Midland - Spyker - Force India, how much has really changed?

Well, having been spanked by the lightly regarded Super Best Friends last year. you can understand Honda's unwillingness to continue the relationship.

As Alice said. Curiouser and Curiouser...

Has anyone figured out how Super Aguri was allowed to race a customer Honda? I don't see any difference to the Prodrive situation. I guess if Super Aguri started beating the Williams or Renaults there would have been a protest.

Mark, I think that the Super Aguri's were allowed to race because at that time BE and the FIA thought it was a good idea. They have since changed their minds and Super Aguri and Torro Rosso have 2 years in which to move away from being customer cars.

I have said before that if a customer car can beat the constructors car, then the constructor is obviously doing something wrong and rather than protest, they should work harder to deal with it. Obviously, the constructor won't like it. Protesting is for those teams that don't have a good enough package for someone else to want to pay for.

The last "customer car," to win a Grand Prix was Jo Siffert when won the Grand Prix of England at Brands Hatch in 1968 driving Rob Walker's Lotus 49B. the last "customer car," to race in Grands Prix was a Lotus 79 driven by Hector Rebacque in 1979. I know I can't tell you my web site but being older than dirt, I have a rant on about "customer cars."