Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsLe Mans

'Nobody is asking Honda if they're going to be in F1 next year'

Nissan's global motorsport boss Darren Cox says Honda's future in F1 should be questioned by sceptics of the NISMO LMP1 project.

Nissan's new LMP1 car will make its World Endurance Championship debut at Le Mans this weekend, with the front-engined, front wheel drive car having qualified over 20 seconds adrift of pole on Thursday. Pre-empting criticism of the gap in performance, Cox was keen to highlight Honda's struggles in F1 as a similar situation.

“Of course we’re coming back next year, that’s part of the plan," Cox said at Le Mans. "The reason we are here, is because this place - if you’ve noticed - is only open once a year and we only get to test it once a year, which is now. So we’re gathering data. We know the increments that we can find over our baseline for this year based on the direction. When we come back next year the engine will still be in the same place and that’s the program, that’s the program that we’re working on.

“So I’m sure nobody in the press room is asking Honda if they're going to be in Formula One next year, but maybe they should do. It’s a very similar conversation. Motorsport is very difficult. This is a huge project and if you don’t believe our effort, we brought three cars in our first year. Why did we bring three cars? I’m sure someone out there will say so we can stick blue on one of the cars…

“No, we brought three cars because we get 50% more data, it means that Ben can have a car to play with for his development for next year. Matsumura-san who is our COO for NISMO can work on our hybrid system for next year away from the race tracks and next year won’t be such a shock to bring our third car because you only win Le Mans if you have three cars here. It’s a fact.”

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.