Nick Fry’s bid to prove that he’s the hardest-headed team boss in F1 goes on apace with the news that the driveless Brit Anthony Davidson currently has little to expect from Honda.
When asked if Honda would be picking up Davidson and team-mate Takuma Sato, he said the following:
“It’s something that we are thinking about at the moment. Obviously both drivers have done a super job over a number of years and if we can help, I’m sure we will.
“But there’s nothing planned at the moment.”
That’s a pretty clear ‘no’, in our opinion.
This comes on the back of questions about the extent of Fry’s and Honda’s involvement in the exit of Super Aguri from Formula One – questions that he has dismissed as “somewhat irrelevant” while calling the whole saga “a pure financial issue.”
And today we learn that Rubens Barrichello will very likely have to find a new drive if he wants to achieve his aim of 300 grand prix starts.
While it’s true that making hard-headed business decisions devoid of sentiment never wins anyone friends, we feel it would be apt if he adopted a swirling black cloak, a tall hat and some waxed moustaches that he could twirl villainously.
If Honda does give Barrichello the boot (who is, in all honesty, hardly over-performing), we don’t think they’ll be turning to Davidson either.
Sato will undoubtedly have first call on any drive going. And, even with the Japanese link, he will have to stake his claim against a number of up-and-coming Honda proteges.
The ones that come to mind here at Brits on Pole are the team’s former British test-driver James Rossiter and the GP2 star Mike Conway, who’s involved with the Honda young driver programme.
With so many capable drivers already on the books we do suspect that Davidson’s future lies elsewhere.