According to the BBC, Honda are to quit Formula One. It costs the company £300 million per year to compete and they managed a poxy 14 points last season - well off the pace in all but the wet British Grand Prix.
Clearly in the current economic climate, the company could not justify spending so much on failure - particularly as they are cutting back on working hours and on jobs.
I have an on-off relationship with F1. When it is competitive it is great to watch. But during periods of dominance by a single team or, worse, driver, it is so routine as to be boring.
And that is why the F1 bosses have to get a grip on the sport and to make it more interesting. They need to level the playing field and even up the racing. There is not point having a sport where only four cars can win a race (and of these, two may be subject to team orders and told to let their mate win). Racing is interesting where it is competitive and close. Yes we like bumps and crashes, but we would happily settle for lots of overtaking and a close championship.
There have been proposals to introduce a common engine and gear box which would cost the teams about £4.5 million a season. Still a huge amount, but far less than the hundreds of millions spent at the moment. But the big teams object. They are happy to throw money at the sport if they think it helps them win.
But if Honda cannot be sold then there will only be 18 cars on the grid in 2009. And who is to say that Force India and both Red Bull teams will make it to Australia at the end of March.
It is definitely time for Bernie et al to shake things up and bring us back decent sport.
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