SUPER AGURI SA07 Honda

   The Japanese team Super Aguri, in its second year in Formula 1, relies entirely on its Team Principal Aguri Suzuki to persuade Honda to supply the engines and chassis from the previous season, leveraging his status as a legend of Japanese motorsport. However, this very close relationship with Honda causes no small number of headaches for Super Aguri. The legal battle surrounding the new Super Aguri SA07 (as well as that involving the Toro Rosso STR2) represents one of the moments of highest political tension in Formula 1 in 2007. This is not merely a technical dispute, but a fight for the economic survival of small independent teams. Under the Concorde Agreement in force at the time, in order to be considered a “Constructor” and thus be entitled to prize money, a team had to own the Intellectual Property of its chassis, meaning it had to design and build its own car rather than purchasing it from another constructor.

SUPER AGURI SA07, Takuma Satō
Monza, Italian GP 2007

   The accusing teams (Spyker and Williams above all) saw squads such as Super Aguri and Toro Rosso racing with chassis designed respectively by Honda and Red Bull Technology, thereby saving tens of millions of dollars in research and development. The SA07 is, in all respects, a 2006 Honda RA106 with minor aerodynamic updates to comply with the new crash tests and the 2007 engine. The dispute ends up before an arbitration tribunal, and Bernie Ecclestone, fearing that the grid could lose two teams (Super Aguri and Toro Rosso risked collapse without prize money), brokers a “watered-down” compromise. It is decided that for 2007 and 2008 the situation would remain frozen, but thereafter the rules would become extremely strict, with each team required to independently design the key components of its car.

SUPER AGURI SA07, Takuma Satō
Montecarlo, Monaco GP 2007

   Super Aguri therefore faces the 2007 championship with a car that is essentially already well proven. With an extremely small staff (around 150 employees compared to over 600 at the top teams), the team operates from the former Arrows headquarters in Leafield, Oxfordshire, making use of facilities belonging to a team that, although it went bankrupt, had been of a high technical standard. Daniele Audetto (Managing Director) is a true paddock veteran, having worked with Ferrari in the 1970s and with Lamborghini in Formula 1. The Technical Director is Australian Mark Preston, arguably the most important figure in Super Aguri’s technical history. Having arrived in 2005 from McLaren, where he worked with Adrian Newey, he brought with him an elite working methodology, capable of orchestrating the transformation of the Honda RA106 into the SA07 in record time, knowing exactly which parts of the old Honda could be “pushed to the limit” and which needed to be made more reliable. Peter McCool (Chief Designer) is responsible for detailed design work, adapting the 2006 chassis to the new, more stringent crash test regulations. Graham Taylor (Sporting Director) is a former Arrows employee who knows the Leafield factory like the back of his hand, and his role is to manage the team’s trackside operations. Alongside them are Stephen Watt as Head of Electronics and Ben Wood as Head of Aerodynamics. Although the team is independent, there is a constant flow of data and personnel with the parent company, and Honda’s engine engineers work shoulder to shoulder with the British mechanics. As a result, the solutions devised by Super Aguri’s small staff to improve the performance of the SA07 are observed with interest, and a touch of embarrassment, by the engineers of the official Honda team, because for most of the season the Super Aguri cars achieve better results than the Honda RA107.

SUPER AGURI SA07, Anthony Davidson
Sakhir, Bahrain GP 2007

   From a technical standpoint, the Super Aguri SA07 is an almost identical copy of the 2006 Honda RA106. It inherits its design philosophy and proves to be far more solid and predictable than the ill-fated Honda RA107. The SA07 retains the clean and effective lines of the 2006 Honda, with a relatively high and narrow nose that follows a proven design to ensure clean airflow towards the flat floor. The sidepods are heavily undercut in their lower section to maximize airflow towards the rear wing and diffuser. To manage the heat of the Honda RA807E V8 engine, the SA07 uses prominent exhaust chimneys on the sidepods, often combined with additional fins to clean up the turbulent airflow directed towards the rear of the car. The chassis is a carbon-fibre honeycomb monocoque, and its true strength lies in its integration with the mechanical components, refined through years of Honda testing. As with the engine, the carbon-fibre gearbox is also the same as that used on the Honda cars, featuring the major innovation inherited from the RA106: the Seamless Shift system (a gearbox with no interruption in torque delivery). An unexpected advantage also comes from the SA07’s older suspension geometry, which adapts surprisingly well to the Bridgestone tyres, sole supplier from 2007, making the car gentle on its tyres and allowing drivers either to run longer stints or to be more aggressive when overtaking.

SUPER AGURI SA07, Takuma Satō
Interlagos, Brazilian GP 2007

   The two race drivers for 2007 are Japanese driver Takuma Satō and Briton Anthony Davidson, with Sakon Yamamoto and James Rossiter as reserve drivers. The year-old car obviously does not allow for miracles, and the two SA07s, despite their enviable reliability, consistently run in the midfield, although on some occasions they reach the points (8th place in Spain and 6th in Canada, both courtesy of Satō). By the end of the season, the team is in dire financial straits, with promised sponsors never materializing and Honda’s support insufficient to cover its debts. The SA07 thus remains the last truly competitive car of the Japanese team. At the beginning of 2008, in fact, after only a few races with the subsequent SA08 (a simple evolution of the SA07), the team is forced to withdraw permanently from Formula 1.