Also because the F1 audience is strongly concentrated in Europe, where Honda's market share is miniscule. Contrasted with Indycar, which is US-based, where Honda has a much larger presence.
Interesting to hear about a major international company reducing their investments in Europe.
"European pessimism" is this weird common knowledge about the decline of Europe. It's been written about in I, Robot. There is population decline but their GDP numbers look on-par with the United States.
It's the major/minor events rather than numbers that seem to push this mindset of inevitable decline.
I think you are reading too much into this, Honda is just not as big in Europe as they are in the US, investment in F1 is a major investment for any car company, even more manufacturing engines that won't translate to their future engineering advancements in consumer products so it's a matter of investment in technology vs brand awareness/exposure, which for Honda in Europe doesn't make sense.
To extrapolate that to a decline of Europe in terms of "European pessimism" is... Quite a leap.
Even more as there is no definition of what "decline" you are meaning here, if it's for green technology I can definitely tell there isn't a decline in Europe, if it's cultural that is a much bigger topic (and much fuzzier) to talk about.
Most people haven't even taken their cars in for the recall, so I highly doubt this impacted anything. Seriously, the recall has something like a 30% completion rate. Not only that but the Takata defect wasn't just Honda, that affected almost every auto manufacturer. GM has a huge Takata recall in place as well, so I'm not sure what you mean by Detroit going after them...
From my perspective (Japan), every news article in US news outlets paired the Takata defect with Honda. I'm aware that everyone uses Takata, so it struck me as a coordinated effort to smear a foreign maker. Detroit has shown its willingness to use media to scare buyers, e.g., with Suzuki in the 1980s and the fake Consumer Reports rollovers.
Some degree of protectionism is expected, of course. I mean, you won't find anyone driving a Ford or Chevy in Japan except as a novelty. But there is a line which, when crossed, gives the impression of desperate anti-competitive measures. Everyone has to decide where they draw that line, I guess.
I think you’ve made up an entire narrative that isn’t supported by the situation. Honda just doesn’t sell cars in Europe, and therefore doesn’t want to spend a ton on a sport that’s primarily popular in Europe.
Honda investments in Europe is almost insignificant and their market share is below 1%.
Honda leaving Formula 1 will have zero effects on the amount of investments in Europe, not to mention it won't have any significance regarding companies reducing investment in Europe.
