http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns21017.html

First to go possibly. Not a surprise, while other teams including STR and Midland/spyker/jordan/force india/teletubbies on wheels, have moved forward even on a restricted budget, this teams gone backwards faster than I can remember any team falling. On the plus side, this could give a great opportunity for Ross Brawn, Jean Todt and Michael Schumacher to own a team like they were rumored to be looking at. Get Rory Byrne onboard for designing the car and you could easily be looking at a team to rise quickly.

Craig. wrote on Dec 4^th, 2008 at 2:02pm:



Not a surprise, to be fair, as they have just said, it is hard to justify £200 million in a sports team when they are having to put workers in Japan on half day shifts due to cuts in production caused by the economic turn down. People will say it is just an excuse, but if we where on the verge of losing our jobs and had gone to half days, I am sure we would have a thing or two to say about this. However, now that Honda have jumped, Toyota will follow, just a question of how long until.


Matt

Craig. wrote on Dec 4^th, 2008 at 7:59pm:


It was a season of all or nothing for Piquet, with lots of nothing. In the bigger picture of F1 finance, buying him out to get Button in would be quite a cheap move. As for Button, I never did understand his passion for Honda. As you said, they have gone backwards (or been left behind) quite quickly over the last couple of seasons. As for the dream team taking over, I think that Schumacher will give it a miss. When you look back over the history of F1, how many former champions have managed to then produce a champion team. Most, if not all have tried for a few years and then thrown the hat in. Schumacher is a very scrude businessman and would not want a big F1 failure on his CV.

Matt

I wont lie, I really couldn't care that they are gone.
  I feel bad for Jeson having signed his contract, but in the end if your spending as much as the top 4 teams and finishing last, while putting an ugly beast of a machine on track, why bother?

As C has said, they should focus on supplying the engine for a team who does a better job of building cars.

As an aside, you have wonder what the wisdom was behind running a sponsorless car?

Craig. wrote on Dec 5^th, 2008 at 4:33pm:


And still have an engine supply deal to help subsidise their effort.

The Ruptured Duck wrote on Dec 5^th, 2008 at 9:53pm:



They don't need standard engines, they just need engines designed to last more than two races. They also need to encourage more 3rd party engine development. Sadly in the last 5 years, the FIA and Bernie managed to completely alieanate and dispatch Ford/Cosworth (who, remember, are the most succuessful engine manufacturer in the sport's history) to the realms of F1 history. And as an idea of how "cheap" it could be, the Cosworth used the same basic engine for about 20 years from about 1968 to 1988. That's how you cut development costs for less well off teams.