04/12/2008
NEWS STORY
We're hearing of a critical meeting at Brackley later today as Honda re-evaluates its position in F1.
In addition to a serious reduction in budget, with particular regards to external spending, Pitpass understands that the team is looking for voluntary redundancies, leaving a lot of extremely worried people at the Japanese team's F1 HQ this afternoon.
Only yesterday, it was revealed that the team, having cancelled its staff Christmas lunch, had also cancelled its traditional media luncheon, citing the fact that the Japanese manufacturer is shutting down its Swindon operation for two months after the holiday.
2008 was the Brackley team's worst season, the team finishing last of the points scoring teams.
We understand that workers who finished their shift at 14.00 at Brackley this afternoon were instructed to return for the 18:00 meeting.
We also hear that across the board, in car manufacturing, F1 etc, Honda is looking to save £100m in 2009.