It’s being billed as the coup of Formula One.  Here’s the way Worldwide Sports News played it: “Ross Brawn confessed he’s joined Honda rather than returning to Ferrari since he relishes the challenge of helping to keep a team in ‘crisis.’  The Brackley-based squad announced ward Monday that they’d pulled against the coup of the time by signing former Ferrari technical guru Brawn.”
   
Does no one else remember the movie “Grand Prix”?  That’s the one with Jim Garner staring as the number two Lotus driver, who’d left Ferrari to get that ride, but ends up with Honda, only they don’t use those names. 
   
But the story is the same.
   
Honda’s the loser, always the loser. 
   
Honda winning in Formula One?
   
Laughable.  Honda doesn’t have the commitment of Toyota, and Toyota is the most expensive loser ever to populate the starting grids of that series.
   
Why?
   
Because they won’t cough up the bucks.
   
Winning in Formula One isn’t just about the money.
   
It is about THE MONEY .  Enterprises like Toyota lack the live or die commitment which that enterprise requires.  The enterprise must exist for the purpose of winning, not as an adjunct to something else, not as a means of advertising.  Enterprises like Honda, which have been there before, should know better.
   
But, Mr. Braun, who couldn’t go back to Ferrari because they wouldn’t trust him after the Stepney deal, have done well to sucker Honda into paying into the retirement fund.
   
I wasn’t referring to Mr. Braun’s retirement.
   
Merely to the inevitable retirement of whatever has a Honda label in a F1 race.