PRIVATE TEAMS WILL HOLD POWER IN FUTURE

+ Click to Enlarge 'SECOND IS ALSO THE FIRST LOSER': The closest Toyota ever came to a Formula 1 win was second, as here with Jarno Trulli (left) at the 2009 Japanese GP. Image: AFP

November 5, 2009
By Alan Baldwin

Big-spending Toyota's exit from Formula 1 leaves the sport accelerating towards a future with minimal Japanese involvement, less money and the balance of power swinging back to private teams.

While the manufacturers will still provide the backbone, there will be only three of them in 2010 - Fiat-owned Ferrari, Mercedes and Renault.

Williams chief executive Adam Parr said: "Perhaps this is the end of a decade of manufacturer dominance in F1 and what we will now see over the next decade is a sport that resembles much more closely the 1990's."

Toyota joins BMW and Honda in pulling out of the sport in the space of less than a year, with Renault seemingly minded to carry on despite its suspended permanent ban for involvement in a race-fixing scandal.

The exodus is undeniably a blow to the sport's prestige and pulling power, but one that it will weather. Even without Toyota, there should still be more teams in 2010 than there have been for years.

Mercedes is set to buck the trend by buying a majority stake in champion Brawn while maintaining, for the time being, its 40 percent shareholding in McLaren.

Toyota, which entered in 2002, will join the ranks of those that came and went with barely a ripple. Its demise is to be regretted but others on the F1 scrapheap drew far more mourners to the funeral.

Parr added: "It's a fact of life in F1 that teams come and go."

The truly unthinkable would be for glamour team Ferrari, which has graced the sport since 1950 and has more fans than anybody else, to quit - but it needs the sport as much as F1 needs it.

Toyota was lacking in glamour and hamstrung by a rigid chain of command yet threw money at the sport in a vain attempt to buy success. Its departure will be just as expensive and the irony is that it comes just as costs are coming down.

Closing down the Cologne F1 operation, with 650 staff, will not come cheap under German labour laws and a sale is not an option since the team was part of a Toyota car factory rather than being a stand-alone facility like Honda's.

Those losing their jobs will find a crowded market, with all teams having to scale down in line with agreed cost cutting measures.

Toyota also signed a binding "Concorde Agreement" as recently as August, committing it to F1 until 2012, so there could also be some hefty exit penalties payable to commercial supremo Bernie Ecclestone.

FIGHTING FIRES

Just about the only positive is the lifeline Toyota has thrown to the former BMW-Sauber team, whose new owners have had to wait as official reserves hoping for a vacancy.

In theory, the 2010 grid will have 13 teams - three more than in 2009 - although there are no guarantees that more will not depart before the Bahrain season-opener comes around in March.

Of those 13, five will be new private teams whose financial health cannot be taken for granted while the same number will be powered by a Cosworth engine that last saw service in 2006.

With sole tyre supplier Bridgestone pulling out at the end of 2010, new International Automobile Federation president Jean Todt has some firefighting to do less than two weeks into his reign.

His predecessor Max Mosley fought to reduce costs, with the sport due to return to the levels of the early 1990's.

The departure of Toyota threatens to take it back to the early 1980's when there were no Japanese GP, teams, engine suppliers or drivers.

SCARY REALITY

Honda-owned Suzuka has a deal to host the Japanese Grand Prix only until 2011 and it remains to be seen whether it will have the appetite to extend it without Japanese teams competing.

The arrival of ever more lavish circuits, with Abu Dhabi's Yas Marina raising the bar last weekend after Singapore in 2008, might give the impression that the sport is going from strength to strength.

And yet France has no GP, Britain is fighting to stay on the calendar and Belgium's Spa is groaning under the weight of heavy losses. Germany's two circuits are also struggling.

The crowd at this year's Turkish GP was pitiful and there is still no confirmed race in North America.

Brawn and new champion Jenson Button provided F1 with a feelgood story on the track in 2009. Off it, the reality looks a lot scarier. - Reuters