Honda's announcement was as surprising as it was a real worry. There had been whispers from Max Mosley during recent cost cutting discussions that certain unnamed teams had precarious futures in the sport, but most assumed he meant Toro Rosso (who at the time were up for sale) or grid minnows Force India. But for Honda to have been the team to cave, a hugely well-backed, genuine manufacturer effort, F1 now faces some serious questions over the coming weeks. Not least regarding the continuing issue of standard engines and cost reduction.
Honda's time as a standalone constructor has not been a particularly happy one. Having fully absorbed the BAR effort at the end of 2005, the team won just one race, picked up a mere four podiums, and after a promising debut season in 2006, plummeted down the grid with all the grace of a cack-handed lemming, and Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello were more often found scrapping to avoid elimination in Q1 this year than challenging for the top ten. But despite all that, they seemed in it for the long haul, throwing themselves into the first winter test at Barcelona last week with guest roles for Bruno Senna and Lucas di Grassi, as the team seemingly began the search for a replacement for Barrichello and a solid 2009 line up. But clearly, behind the scenes, all was not well.
In the end, of course, it wasn't the lack of results per se that forced Honda's hand, but the current economic issues, which seem to have affected car sales almost as much as they've affected the price of a two-up, two-down in Surrey. And it is this state of affairs that will doubtless become intrinsic to the cost-cutting arguments. After all, if one of the richest car makers in the world has found it impossible to justify spending their money in F1, how long before some of the smaller teams start to drop out? But before we all start to panic, it is worth noting that just last month, Red Bull felt confident enough it it's own financial longevity to re-purchase the threatened Toro Rosso team for 2009. So not everyone is quite as hard up.
Meanwhile, Max Mosley has been quick to jump on Honda's decision to reaffirm his belief in a standard engine formula for the future. But interestingly, with a slight twist. Though he has confirmed that the FIA are in discussion with Cosworth to provide a standard engine and transmission at a cost of merely £6 million per year, Mosley has sought to becalm manufacturer intransigence by conceding that the big guns will still be allowed to develop their own units, albeit controlled to allow parity between these bespoke models and the standard Cosworth unit. A concession, but one unlikely to fully satisfy the likes of Ferrari, Mercedes and BMW, who are already tightly restricted in when, where and how they develop their V8s.
What happens to The Artist Formerly Known As Honda next may be key to the debate. Nick Fry and Ross Brawn have already confirmed that there are at least three parties who are interested in buying the team, and Brawn himself has apparently made initial conciliatory efforts to nab a Ferrari engine deal for next year, with the Italian marque now having a gap in their customer market following Force India's defection to Mercedes power. If a rich sheikh (remember we have an Abu Dhabi GP next year) or other investor can be found to quickly lend a rudder to the team's listing ship, then this new "crisis" is really over before it has begun, and the need for standardisation is swiftly called into question.
If, though, as happened with Super Aguri at the start of the year, the potential investors choose to keep their wallets to themselves, and the F1 grid is allowed to drop to a mere 18 cars, then the argument that F1 is strong enough to survive without desperate and anti-competitive rule changes becomes severely weakened, and the team's assertion that cuts can be made elsewhere without ruining F1's ethos too badly becomes less desirable.
While some will find a smidge of schadenfreude watching Nick Fry desperately try to woo a new suitor, after he was largely blamed for killing off Super Aguri following their unsuccessful search for capital, the bigger picture would seem to suggest that it is crucial for F1 as we know it that TAFKAHonda make it to Melbourne.
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