Second Honda team to break cover tomorrow

Petroltorque

They'll be operating out of the old Arrows Factory. Pressures on minardi to keep ahead of this outfit. Does anyone know what Minardi's plans are regards chassis development for next year? Lets hope Red Bull at least provide enough funding for a proper R and d department.

bladerunner

Wow, Softbank involved ....a true Japanese DotCom survivor :)

Have to say I admire Aguri Suzuki for his preseverance. Like DOME, he had the dream of entering F1 for years...working diligently and never giving up.

I havean old F1 magazine from 1997 (with Katayama in Minardi gear on the cover, his final race for Minardi) where Aguri Suzuki presents the ARTA project.

ARTA climbed the ladder to IRL in 2003

http://racing.honda.com/press/detail.aspx?id=2002121762087

and now they are apparently in F1.

Minardus

Grandprix.com:

Super Aguri F1 is go!
It has been confirmed in Tokyo that Aguri Suzuki is the man behind the new Honda team, as we exclusively predicted some weeks ago. The name of the new team will be Super Aguri F1 and the cars will be known as Aguri-Hondas. The team will be headquartered in Tokyo, close to the Honda head office but the factory will be at Leafield, where the company has acquired the Menard Engineering facility, formerly the Arrows F1 factory. There are already 100 people working on the project.

The plan for the new team began as long ago as February but did not really take shape until September. The team will almost certainly be funded by Softbank but the contract is not yet signed.

Bridgestone has offered to supply the team with tyres.

Suzuki says that he is talking to Takuma Sato but did not mention any other drivers, although Anthony Davidson is also believed to be a likely driver.

The plan is for the new team to be officially launched at the end of January.

manlio27

Everything has been confirmed (except names of the drivers), but honestly I doubt this team will be lining up in 2006, more probably it will be in 2007 IMHO.

ATi

Sato is a safe bet to became the 1st driver for this new team. (Japanese team, main sponsor, team leader, tyres, eninge... driver)

The time is too short to build a new team, but not impossible! With a big bag of money they could put 2 cars on the grid at the season opener.
Or am i read too much fairy-tale? :)

viges

Stoddie and Faenza did it in six weeks in 2001. Maybe BAR will sell the drawings for the 2005 car.

Hope Davidson gets the drive - BTW Dan Wheldon is tipped for a big test soon.

ATi

ohh, yeah...
it wasn't a fairy tale, it was the history of MINARDI

forzaminardi

hmmmm this sounds very interesting

Minardus

More info from Grandprix.com:

Aguri Suzuki filed his entry for the 2006 Formula 1 World Championship on October 26. The team must now wait until December 1 to find out whether or not the entry will be accepted. The team is to be based in the former Arrows facility at Leafield in England but it is thought that the team will not design its own car. There will be much technical assistance for the team from Honda but we also hear that some of the technical staff from Panoz GForce may be involved in the Super Aguri programme. Super Aguri Fernandez Racing, the Indy Racing League team run by Aguri, used Panoz GForce chassis this year.

Aguri Suzuki says that he has not yet made any decisions about his drivers for 2006 and there is already speculation in Japan that Kosuke Matsuura could be one of the drivers.

"It could be two Japanese drivers or one Japanese driver," Suzuki told reporters in Tokyo. "It could even be two foreign drivers. Right now we are in a race against time and we have other priorities."

Matsuura is 26 and from Aichi. He was the 2004 IRL Rookie of the Year with Super Aguri Fernandez Racing, having moved up from the Renault V6 Eurocup Championship in 2003 in which he finished third. In 2002 he finished second in the German F3 series. Prior to that he was the 2000 Formula Dream champion. He has been backed by Suzuki throughout his career.

manlio27

According to the spanish newspaper Marca and to the french site sport24.com, the two drivers should be Sato and De la Rosa.

bladerunner

Very funny team pictures....

http://www.super-aguri.co.jp/ENGLISH/2005.html

The gajin (aka Ralph Firman) seems to stick out a little.

Suzuki: Your manners are a disgrace to me and the enire Super Aguri team. Where's your tie ? Why are you unshaved ?

Firman: Sorry, boss. Bit of a hangover...

Suzuki: Bow to your sensei and apologize :). There goes your 2006 F1 seat...

max_torq

So the 2nd Honda team can't use any other teams chassis, and can't develop their own in this time frame. Their only possibility is to buy the rights to the Arrows chassis plans from Paul Stoddart...

A re-jigged PS03? Running what a detuned Honda V10?

At least this should also means that STR won't be able to use the old jaguar again. They'll have to run the PS05. As to how much development will be interesting to compare.

forzaminardi

found this on a japanese web site. is this just a hoax or is this indeed the proposed livery? looks very nice to me

Biker

Bit strange the colours. Where ends orange and starts red?
As they say in Holland: "Een beetje raar, maar wel lekker"

bladerunner

Aguri Racing always has orange (Autobacs), especially in GT

Softbank owns a lot of Yahoo (Yahoo BB in Japan) stock, H2O is a sponsor of Sato, Autobacs is Auguri's house sponsor...

The prominent Honda logo on the nose seems to be a bit too prominent...maybe they started with a white BAR car and painted the stuff on top of it ?

If it's fake, it looks like a very credible artist rendition.

bernie

I like the sidepods but can't make out what is going on in the chimneys...is that an opticl illusion or are therie holes int he front of the chimneys? I'll have to have some coffee and look at this again

viges

I see no chimneys. I need more than coffee.