Which leaves Renault, Mercedes, and Ferrari to be the only manufacturers to remain in the sport.

This comes in an environment where its largely assumed that Renault have received leniency by the FIA on the Crash-gate cheating scandal to ensure their participation in the sport (the team intentionally ordered Piquet Jr. to crash his car to bring out the yellow-flag and help his team-mate Alonso win the 08' Singapore GP).

Also, Mercedes is rumored to be in talks to buy-out Brawn GP to make it it's factory team, to further distance themselves from McLaren. Since a rift has formed after their Spygate and Liegate cheating scandals that Mercedes has tarnished the company's image.

http://online.wsj.com/article/...ories

Quote, originally posted by Wall Street Journal »

Toyota Motor Corp. is planning to leave Formula One motor racing, a person close to the Japanese auto maker said Wednesday, in the latest blow to the popular global sport. Toyota follows Honda as the second major Japanese automaker to withdraw from Formula One. Toyota is expected to call a news conference in Japan later today to announce the decision, which follows the end of this year's racing season this past weekend, the knowledgeable person said. The exact reason for the move wasn't immediately clear. But it comes at a time when Toyota is struggling with losses following the collapse of car sales in the U.S. and other major markets. Running a Formula One racing team is extremely expensive, costing as much as hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Toyota's expected announcement could deal a major blow to the future of Formula One, which in recent months has also seen BMW AG and Honda Motor Co. leave the sport to cut costs amid sluggish global auto sales. Formula One also has been suffering from declining attendance, internal power struggles and a poor environmental image. Although a marginal sport in the U.S., Formula One has established itself as the pinnacle of international motor racing and attracts huge television audiences in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. That has made it a big business, with sponsorship and television deals totaling billions of dollars.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/80002
http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.co...a-one/
http://home.kyodo.co.jp/module...68630
http://www.reuters.com/article...91104

Quote, originally posted by Corbic »

Your an idiot.

The manufacturer backed teams are getting replaced by more freelancers and independents. The grid will actually be larger next season then this one. Whether the new teams manage to compete is another question all together...

which sucks. Cause then you'll see 3 teams racing Ferrari, 2 Honda and 5 Renault.

Xbox Live Gamertag: nickthaskater

Quote, originally posted by peoples_car »

Brawn Mercedes and . . Mclaren Toyota

No Toyota. The Brawn rumors are they will become the official factory Mercedes team. McLaren are rumored to be seeking to buy BMW's engine effort and rebranding them as McLaren.

Keep in mind, these are all rumors, but they have been flamed by the recent rift between the two companies. The McLaren MP4-12C is not using a Mercedes sourced engines and has no input from them, and Mercedes for their part have parted company with McLaren on the SLR successor, the SLS. However, McLaren is still 40% owned by Mercedes so its not that simple. We'll see what happens before next season.

But the major issue is that the two remaining manufacturers aside from Ferrari have had a negative impact to their brand-image due to their participation within F1 in the last couple of years. Given the astronomical expenses, and given the dubious effect that F1 has in boosting sales, there has been an exodus of big brands away from the sport.

The FIA for their part seems to be promoting smaller teams and Cosworth. The FOTA, that have previously opposed the FIA in many of their rule-changing, are now dramatically weakened with the departure of BMW and Toyota.

Not exactly... Mercedes and Cosworth will provide power and as far as I know Honda isn't providing engines to anyone. I would like to see more engines, but engines don't make or break a team so much in modern F1. Aero packages are the most important part of a car now and teams still do that themselves, but I do see what you are getting at. However, Toyota only provided to one other team, Williams.

Besides, F1 has a rich history of a few companies selling engines to all sorts of teams. Didn't BMW and Renault provide half the engines on the grid back in the 80's?

I would love to see all kinds of manufacturers in F1 from Ford to VW/Audi to Porsche to Alfa, but it isn't a bad thing to have these smaller teams. These teams are run by people that truly love racing and don't feel like their team is simply a wing of a monster corporation's advertising department, which is how I felt about Toyota's F1 team.

Confirmed.

Honda, BMW, Toyota... all in one year. Renault is next.

The only hope for F1 is to allow 6 wheels again.

(I took this pic at Watkins Glen in 1977. Amazing how close you could get to the cars in the paddock in those days.)

"I have no budget, no budget," the Paris-based racer told reporters. "So I cannot drive GP2 next year. I would probably go back to Japan to maybe work with my father in his sushi restaurant."

Man, that's too bad. Dashed hopes and dreams. I had him pegged for another Vettel. Hope he gets another ride some time in the future.

i bet you like wrestling and fox news, too... in real sports competition, who cares about drama and characters - F1 is still fun to watch, so is MotoGP

Quote, originally posted by rosskoss »

Because most Americans raise goats at home.

Actually no, i hate both wrestling and fox news.

I see boobie

F1 is like watching other people play video games.

you can still get pretty close to the paddock these days, well ok, you can get up close to all the teams besides ferrari and mclaren

my eyes jumped from the tyrell to the boobs

http://www.last.fm/users/nevermas323
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nevermas

MotoGP is more fun to watch just because it is motorcycles instead of cars. WorldSuperBike is where its at though, possibly the best racing on the planet currently.

I'd hate to see Benz buy Brawn... Brawn is like the last remnant of Tyrell

Lotus is back next year.

Nice pic. What price does this kind of access cost? In 1977, I could afford a paddock pass on my meager earnings, which was barely above minimum wage.

And, yeah, the raw look of the garage in 1977 at the Glen, with boobies drawn on the garage door, is total win.

He's talking about me!

Quote, originally posted by jamie@vwvortex »

Because you guys are unbelievably paranoid, delusional idiots...

Hopefully Kobayashi finds a ride for next season.

We leave.

Meh.

Quote, originally posted by VarianceVQ »

More and more evidence is piling up that Europeans are nothing more than Americans with more colorful money and funny accents.

Speed:Sport:Life

would be cool to see a black car with gold stripes race atleast once, I know they can't use the logos anymore, but ferrari does just fine

Lotus in name only. This Lotus has nothing to do with the Lotus of yore.

Gone: 2003 20th AE GTI No. 3822 w/ESP
The Anti-Fanboy Fanboy

Its included in the ticket, you can go on Thursdays for a paddock walk and peer through the garages, watch the team members setup, start the engines, etc...

The Lotus F1 team is funded by the same group that bankrolls the Lotus car division.

So, you're saying the brilliant new range of Lotus cars aren't anything like the old range simply because a Malaysian company is bankrolling them?
I don't understand. Proton has been doing a GREAT job with Lotus (much to everyone's surprise...)
Hell, even Jaguar and Land Rover are doing better under Tata management...