FRY ON BRAWN
HONDA WANTED TO SHUT DOWN THE TEAM IMMEDIATELY
In late 2008, what had been known as the “credit crunch” went viral and became a worldwide crisis. Banks wilted under the enormity of bad debts, exposed after years of concealment in obscure financial mechanisms. In response they cut back on lending, and among the consequences was a collapse in the new-car market. Honda decided to axe its struggling F1 programme right away, and summoned Fry and team principal Ross Brawn to a meeting in a Heathrow hotel one November morning.
Nick Fry: “We knew it was going to be a difficult meeting. We’d done enough homework to cut the budget by about a third. This poor gentleman, Mr Oshima, our boss, was pretty much in tears as he told us that was it – they were off. The situation on the business side was that bad they couldn’t spend any money on F1. ‘Please go to Brackley and tell them all to go home and turn off the lights on the way out’ was the message.
“It was me who said, ‘You can’t do that – you’ve got to give us a chance.’ Honda is a big, honourable company and after some discussion we were given a month. Running up to Christmas with the world’s worst financial crisis didn’t
