Brawn: Honda should supply one team

Ferrari technical director Ross Brawn says that Honda needs to go it alone, with one team, if it is to regain the successes it had in Formula 1 in the late eighties and early nineties

In the eighties, Honda powered Nelson Piquet, Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost to world championships with Williams and McLaren before withdrawing in 1992. The company seriously considered a standalone project when it returned to the F1 arena in 1999 but eventually plumped for conventional engine supply deals with first BAR, and then Jordan. So far this year, it is the only one of the major engine manufacturers without a point.

"It's clear that the successful teams in F1 have to be one entity," said Brawn in Barcelona, "and I always thought that was one of the potential strengths of Ferrari even if it wasn't always that way. I think that Honda has to look at working like that. You could say that they still look like an engine supplier and not a partner. We supply Sauber on a customer basis but it has no effect on our programme and generates some income, which is always nice. Honda needs to bite the bullet and become as one with a team if they are to achieve the success they had in the past. And I'm sure it's more difficult now."