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The forlorned, sponsorless "Planet Earth"
Honda RA108 F1 racecar. (Image source: Richards F1/ motorsportm8.com)
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Surely Y'all recall how several years ago,
about eight long years back, eh? How the land of the Rising Sun's major Auto
manufacturers were A-L-L rapidly pulling out of motor racing under the guise of
economic duress...
Although as I
scribbled Wayback then, it seemed like some of Japan's Heavy Hitter's, notably
Honda and Toyota were conveniently using the financial pinch to save face and
pull the plug upon their vastly disappointing and Uber expensive Formula 1
programmes, as both were hemorrhaging multi-millions simply for the privilege
of racing in the pinnacle 'O motorsports with less than stellar results; think
Honda's sponsorless "Planet Earth" racecar which was rated one of the
ten ugliest F1 liveries...
Yet nearly a decade ago, when last visiting
Japan, I enjoyed a most wonderful outing to Toyota City with Yutaka as my
personal guide, where two of Toyota's Formula 1 TF105's sat on static display as
part of the excellent Toyota Automobile Museum.
Yet as we all know, except for your humble No
Fenders scribe, who missed getting Duh Memo, albeit for racing series long
devoid of Stateside television exposure, aka World Rally Championship, (WRC)
the tide's seemingly turned towards the high side once again. Although NOT to
be Cornfuzed with that term High-siding; Hya!
As I'd totally missed hearing 'bout Toyota's
returning to WRC for 2017 with its Yarus chassis, whilst Hyundai's apparently
stepped up to the WRC plate as well. Whilst Toyota will hope to atone for its devastating
last-lap "Handgrenading" upon Circuit de la Sarthe this coming
summer.
And Toyota, as a fully fledged
"Works" entrant will dive into IMSA's ever burgeoning GTD (Daytona)
class ranks with two Factory Lexus RC F GT3's campaigned by Paul GOOFY'
Gentilozzi's 3GT Racing squad, with the likes of recent IndyCar drivers Sage
Dangerboy' Karam and "Union Jack" Hawksworth joining team leader Scotty
Scooter' Pruett and the lesser known Robert Alon.
While I've already mentioned how Michael
Shank Racing's (MSR) became Hondres' Acura NSX Works team for its two car GTD
effort, for which The Freaks had a lighter side interview with all four MSR
drivers recently, which as typical was pretty entertaining, along with taking
mild swipes at the Delta Wing racecar...
And when I think of Honda and Acura,
naturally I flashback to the mighty McLaren-Honda F1 era along with Ayrton
Senna developing the original NSX, for which sadly, albeit partially of his own
doing, the eponymous Ronster', nee Ron Dennis is in thou midst 'O enforced
Gardening leave...
Although I can firmly say I've never been a
fan of Ron's, still able to vaguely recall muttering "niceties"
towards Dennis as his abstentious Mercedes Benz Saloon forced its way into the
Paddock at Phoenix, AZ, with I believe Gerhard Berger alongside him? Since
after all that was at least a quarter century ago; YIKES!
As I find the stories making the rounds 'bout
his Micromanaging style leading to his Downfall somewhat entertaining, as
Dennis was so controlling that every room at Woking was set to his favourite
temperature of 21C, for which I've NO idea what's that in Fahrenheit?
Then again, may be
there's a reason I'm writing a blog from a basement cellar dwelling and
Dennis's estimated wealth is in the half-billion range, along with having built
McLaren into a nearly one billion per year industry!
As I firmly believe
Ron's correct about not being able to win Formula 1 championships these days
unless you're aligned as a "Works" entity regarding PU's, and I
totally hope to see McLaren break it's long victory drought in the near
future...