F1: RIP Honda

Honda's recent terrible performance in Formula One combined with rapidly falling sales for consumer road cars have combined to kill the company's Formula One team.

The team's performance for the past two seasons has been dismal despite massive investment and the appointment of Ross Brawn to fix it. The team's drivers and mechanics have struggled with design that simply won't go fast enough. Embarrassed by the performance of Super Aguri using Honda's old car and the current engine, Honda spent the season amongst the likes of Force India, essentially a privateer. Of the manufacturer backed teams, Honda was almost in a different Formula.

The team had announced that in 2009 it would move to biofuel, as part of its eco-friendly marketing message.

The team's website says "Powering dreams one lap at a time." But reliability was not a significant reason for the team's failure.

Jenson Button will drive in the Race of Champions on 14th December, and his racing boots are available as prize from the Honda F1 website. That may be his last appearance for the team he paid a penalty to Williams to join, and to whom he has remained loyal even in the darkest times. His colleague Rubens Barrichello is the most experienced on the grid. Both of them now appear to be without a drive - unless someone can be found to buy the team and take over their contracts.

The decision is a worst case scenario for F1's boss Bernie Ecclestone. Although a fervent Ferrari fan, he knows his favourite team has no purpose if there is no one else to race against and the dominance of the sport by motor companies, a move he favoured, means that it is vulnerable to collapse in the motor industry at large. If the team is not sold and entered for next' year's series, there will be only nine teams on the grid, which might encourage Ecclestone to offer teams the chance to enter a third car, possibly with the radical idea that only the first two finishers from each team score points. That, however, would dramatically increase costs for the remaining teams - who all need to cut costs - although Ferrari and McLaren - the two best funded teams - would view such a scheme as a way of getting testing when testing per se is not permitted.

Honda had little sponsorship compared to other teams: indeed, Honda was by far the biggest sponsor of the team.

In an unusual insight into the costs of running a Formula One team, Honda said that leaving the series would save the company just shy of USD110 million.

The decision puts both drivers in a difficult position: the drivers' annual game of musical chairs has completed and all teams have announced a line-up.It is unlikely that a place would open up for two very talented drivers who have gained almost no points for two years.