With the news now official that Honda is withdrawing from Formula 1 with immediate effect, my worst fear about a manufacturer-dominated F1 is being realized.
Manufacturers can always walk away from the sport when they feel the need to do so. Honda has left F1 at least twice before (in the 1960's and in 1992). The deteriorating economic climate in automobile manufacture, plus the reality that they were going to have to spend a lot of money in 2009 (especially on their engine program...the 2008 Honda power unit was reckoned to be the worst in F1) probably left the F1 program as an easy cost-saving option.
I was surprised that Honda were the first manufacturer to leave, since they at least have a winning record, unlike Toyota, which has yet to win a race. However, Toyota is a much bigger corporation than Honda, and can realistically more easily carry the cost of its F1 program.
A more significant question, which has been discussed recently by Dieter Rencken in Autosport, is why Honda was in Formula 1 as a constructor in the first place. When they were in F1 as an engine supplier in the 1980's and 1990's, they won championships and races galore. Their win record since they returned to F1 in 1999 with BAR is - 1 race (a lucky victory at the 2006 Hungarian GP). Worse still, since they bought out the ownership of BAR, Honda has had no significant outside corporate or business partner sponsorship in the team, so they have essentially been funding the entire cost of running the team themselves, in addition to the cost of the engine program. Their costs were also inflated in 2006/2007 by the cost of supplying engines, technical support and other funding to Super Aguri before that team was forced out due to accumulated debts. When you think more about the cumulative costs, it is easy to see why Honda have decided to walk away. They were paying megabucks for mediocre results.
The principals of the Honda team now have a challenge to find a buyer who can properly fund the team next year. Engine supply should not be an issue since Ferrari has spare supply capacity after the decision of Force India to sign a powertrain deal with McLaren-Mercedes. Money and committment will be the issues.
On a broader front, the decision by Honda vindicates Max Mosley's decision to force the cost-cutting issue by putting out a tender for a standard powertrain in 2010 and beyond. This tender, which has apparently been won by a consortium headed by Cosworth, would provide a standard engine, gearbox and drivetrain at a fixed (presumably low) cost for any team. Whether the remaining manufacturers will embrace it is another question. However, with the world economy in a deepening recession, their hands may be forced by boards of directors unwilling to keep committing up to $100m a season in Formula 1. The reality that many people lost sight of is that a lower-cost F1 would most likely not look any different to spectators. Spectators want to watch racing, not count the cost of the latest specification of unobtanium wheel nut.
UPDATE - This article in Pitpass.com eloquently asks some of the questions I already surfaced, such as why the manufacturers own teams instead of merely being engine suppliers, and the awkward question as to why established country Grands Prix (France, Germany, British, US) are either being dumped or threatened with removal in favour of Grands Prix in "new" countries which have next to no motorsports tradition. The only rationale that makes any sense is the servicing of the massive debt that CVC has incurred by owning FOM and its rights to hold and promote F1 races. This latter debt management issue may yet be the death of F1 as we currently know it...