Formula One's big spenders lose steam

London "Gentlemen, Formula One is becoming unsustainable." That was the top line of a letter sent to the teams by Max Mosley, president of Formula One's ruling body, the FIA, in July.

Mosley has been banging the cost-cutting drum for the past five years, introducing any number of initiatives from long-life engines to development freezes.

It is a recurring theme. Twenty years ago, when F1 was last in the grip of global financial ruin and down to half a dozen teams, its creator, Bernie Ecclestone, stripped the cost out of competing overnight by introducing normally-aspirated engines to run alongside the ultra-expensive turbo monsters favoured by the big spenders.

Within two years the turbos were gone and teams were flocking to the sport once more. A generation later, with F1 again feeding too high on the hog, Ecclestone is required to fashion a response.

Last Thursday, before news of Honda's demise broke, the teams met to discuss further cost-cutting measures to be rubber-stamped at next week's World Council meeting.

Outgoing Honda chief executive Nick Fry estimates savings of $70 million a year in 2009. That will not go far enough for Ecclestone, who wants to see an immediate end to the $500 million annual budget spent by the likes of Toyota and McLaren.

Ecclestone understands that Formula One is first and foremost a sport, not a marketing exercise for motor manufacturers.

Investing huge sums in innovative technology that might or might not have consequences for the wider motoring industry misses the point. People tune in to watch a race. They neither see nor care about the space-age drama occurring beneath the engine cover.

The community of petrolheads might convince themselves of the sovereignty of drive trains and air flows over the importance of the driver, but the wider sporting public do not invest in that.

The question for them is who won the race, not which car. Ecclestone and Mosley will use Honda's disappearing act to ram the message home.

F1's pulling power is three times that of Premier League football. But the show cannot go on without cars on the track. In 2001, after Ford had completed the purchase of Stewart Racing, Eddie Jordan used the occasion to remind observers of the transient nature of manufacturer involvement in F1.

Ford have long since gone. Now Honda, too. Who's next? Toyota?

- The Telegraph Group Limited, London 2008