Honda: No Decision on Buying BAR Stake

Honda Racing Development president Shoichi Tanaka said on Friday that the Japanese company is still undecided about taking a shareholding in BAR after they announced a new multi-year contract with the British-based outfit.

Honda, who joined forces with BAR in 2000, are working closer and closer every year and now have Honda engineers now stationed in the team's Brackley headquarters working under BAR technical director Geoff Willis.

"I know that there is a rumour about holding shares in BAR but for that point nothing has been decided," said Tanaka.

Honda confirmed that they will be increasing the number of their engineers in Brackley in the future as the two companies continue to work closer and closer with the aim of securing the World Championship. The new deal will see Honda and BAR together until at least the end of the 2007 season and team boss David Richards said: "Over the last few years we have been working closer and closer.

"When I started with the team there were separate programmes going on in Japan and England. We have formed a far closer working relationship with a number of Honda engineers actually with us at the factory. They are not just working as part of the technical team under Geoff Willis but also as window people to the resources available in Japan so we can access a lot of facilities they have back in their R&D centre there."

The Japanese company, which enjoyed World Championship success in Formula One with McLaren in the late 1980s, are more concerned about the technical challenge than owning a team outright, however. Team chief David Richards insisted that current owners British American Tobacco will not necessarily leave when a ban on tobacco advertising comes into force in 2006.

"There is no reason why BAT cannot continue to own this team for many, many years to come," insisted Richards. "It is not affected by any tobacco legislation whatsoever."

Honda also confirmed that they could still pull out of the contract if they are not happy with the route Formula One is taking as talks continue over radical changes to improve the spectacle of the sport.

"We have in the new contract a clause that when the objective of our participation in Formula One is not achieved...then there is a break clause," said Tanaka.

Richards, who signed Japanese driver Takuma Sato to partner Jenson Button this year, insisted that the further integration of Honda into the BAR set-up will not affect the team's driver line-up.

"Driver relationships are completely independent and Honda have made it very clear in the past and I am sure they would say again that the decision about drivers is a team decision," he added. "As we move more and more towards competitiveness and the challenge for the world title so that will be the overriding issue. Nationality and marketing issues will not be prevalent at that stage."