I fail to see the logic in Honda willingly paying big sums of development money for someone else to reap the rewards of it all.
When Brawn went in he stopped development of the current Honda and pooled the resources of both Honda and Super Aguri to concentrate solely on building a car with the 2009 rule changes in mind, they designed 3 different cars and selected the best to continue with. The Honda money went into that and the board knew exactly what was going on and how good a car they had, there is no logic to Honda just pulling out before they reap the rewards of that time, money and effort.
Honda unwillingly withdrew from F1, I recall their CEO almost crying at he announcement. And if Brawns success was all down to having a Merc Engine why was Mclaren 2 seconds off their pace in Australia?
You think a team can just bolt on an unplanned for engine, have it fit with the bodywork, mechanical, cooling and electrical systems etc. and instantly be 2 seconds quicker than the engine suppliers primary long time customer who had designed their car around that engine?
Getting the Merc engines was a last minute thing, there is no way Honda would have been privy to the Merc engines specs to design a car around it.
I don't see why not, Merc were in the business of supplying engines and they must make some of the specs available to potential customers.
All the suppliers offered their engines just so happens Mercs fit the best abd the fact it was also the most powerful made it an easy choice. If Honda had stuck it out one more season hey would have won probably even more races than what Brawn did because of their big budget, yes even with a Honda engine.
I think they would've been struggling if the engine was anything like the Honda of the previous few years.
To use my phone in the car I deleted all my German contacts, it's now Hans free.