F1: BMW's "Strategy Number ONE" - pack up and go home

It's beginning to look as if car makers make bad Formula One team owners. First Honda ran away after its prime team turned out to be hopeless and its customer team beat it regularly in 2008.

This year, Renault are watching Red Bull storm up the championship board whilst their drivers don't - although both Renault drivers had a decent weekend in Hungary, except for non-car related problems.

Toyota has been rumoured to be regretting its spending in F1 for most of this year; and it's made worse by the fact that the fact that Williams, using a Toyota customer engine roundly and regularly beats the factory team. Toyota's engine boss, Luca Marmorini, left in January this year. Toyota's deal to supply Williams was for three years - the first being 2007. So if Toyota pull out and stop making engines, there's a question over what power would be in the back of a Williams next year.

So, "In line with our Strategy Number ONE .. our Formula One campaign is less a key promoter for us," said Dr Norbert Reithhofer, BMW's group chairman.

The decision, said board member Dr Klaus Dreager, had only been made yesterday. No decisions have been made as to closures, redundancies (either in terms of number of location) nor whether any of the team will transfer to BMW's other forms of motorsport e.g. WTCC where they have this season started to challenge the diesel cars of SEAT.

BMW will continue to compete until the end of this season. But it will discontinue work on a car for the future and cut back on development for this year.

In its three year history, the team has won one race - the Canadian GP in 2008 with Robert Kubica and taken one pole position (Kubica again, this time in Bahrain). It has had 16 podium finished. It inherited second place in the constructors' championship in 2007 after McLaren were excluded and finished third last year.

However, under the winner takes all scoring system for the drivers' championship which the FIA has not yet abandoned, the consistency shown by the team would not translate into driver success next year.

So, that leaves Petronas without a car for its logo for next year: given the profile they are getting on the Rossi and Lorenzo bikes in MotoGP this year, one wonders if they will, also, say that enough is enough in F1.