Toyota Withdraw From F1

It has been announced today that Toyota will be pulling out of Formula 1 with immediate effect. The world's largest car manufacture has said that it will now focus its eyes on its core business.

Toyota are now the third manufacture to pull out of F1 in 11 months. First Honda went, then BMW and now Toyota. They all have something in common, they are leaving due to the global financial crisis. But I suspect that the financial crisis is being used as a scapegoat to hide their poor results over the last few seasons.

Honda withdrew at the beginning of this year, but looking at their results over the 2007 & 2008 seasons you can see why they took that decision. During these two seasons they managed to score a total of 20 points, finishing 8th and 9th respectively. The highest scoring place they secured was in 2007 when Jenson Button finished 5th at the Chinese Grand Prix.

Half-way through this season BMW were next to cut all cords with F1. After a promising 2008 season, the future was looking bright for them to compete for the title this year, but everything didn't go to plan. The team cited "current developments in motorsport" for their exit. Although there was a lot of confusion at that time during the sport regarding Max Mosley, the team budgets and teams wanting to break away, I think again it was down to the poor results.

Finally Toyota announced today that they are pulling out with immediate effect. The team have always been well funded, but in all 139 races have never won once. Despite recent efforts with rookie Kamui Kobayashi finishing 6th in only his second race, things were not looking promising for them and they received a lot of criticism due to this.

Toyota have cited that the current financial crisis is a hurdle they do not wish to climb over, but Toyota are the world's largest manufacture and are definitely not shy of money. They published their loss of profits in the financial year up to March earlier this year, loosing a total of £2.9 billion, and are expecting to be a bigger loss when results of the financial year up to September are released later this week. But when you look at independent teams such as Williams & Brawn GP, they have been able to stand on their own two feet comfortably and will continue to do so next season. Brawn, who have been living on a shoestring budget, went on to win both the driver's and constructor's titles.

To add to the current crisis surrounding Formula 1, Renault today held an emergency meeting regarding their future. The meeting was held to decide whether Renault would continue racing as a team, simply be an engine supplier or quit altogether. The team earlier this season came under scrutiny after the alleged planed accident of Nelson Piquet, and got off lightly. This season has been their worst competitive season since 2001, finishing eighth out of 10 constructors.

The 2009 season has definitely been controversial, whether it be the teams dropping out, teams wanting to break away and start a new championship or race fixing, it has thrown a huge spanner into the works and the future of F1 is beginning to look bleak.