On top of the exits of Bridgestone and Toyota came news that Renault had held an emergency board meeting to discuss their future in Formula 1. According to Andrew Benson at the BBC:

The French car company was considering whether to remain in the sport with its own team, switch to simply being an engine supplier or quit altogether.

Were Renault to pull out, it would conclude the removal of all of the major manufacturer teams in F1. Honda, BMW and Toyota have all gone in the past year. Renault are now seriously considering leaving.

In terms of manufacturer involvement, that would leave engine suppliers Mercedes-Benz and Ferrari. Both Mercedes and Ferrari are as close to being permanent fixtures as it comes in F1. Mercedes have been involved in F1 uninterrupted since 1993. With their increased involvement in Brawn, they look set to stick around. Ferrari have been in F1 since the beginning in 1950 and were they to leave it would be the end of F1. As such, you can more-or-less exclude both Mercedes and Ferrari from the list of manufacturers at risk of leaving F1.

I have to admit that I am wary of what Renault might do. I always suspected that Renault would be the first manufacturer to leave, certainly since Carlos Ghosn took over there. Now they are effectively the last one remaining. That is a surprise. Does it make it more likely for them to stay in the long run? Or is this the opportunity to join the queue of companies leaving the sport without looking a bit silly like Honda did?

There are more questions. Was Max Mosley right all along to push forward with his anti-manufacturer proposals? His justification was that manufacturers might leave with no warning, so it was wise to slash costs, freeze engines and neuter the sport in all sorts of ways. Now that manufacturers are leaving in droves, it looks like he may have been right.

The alternative possibility is that the changes he has forced through, along with the screeds of bad publicity it caused, have fundamentally made the sport less attractive. The manufacturers could well have preferred a breakaway than live with the FIA’s vision. But the FIA’s vision is what we’ve got. Ferrari certainly have their own views.

The thing is, manufacturers are always fickle. They always have been, and always will be. They will leave at the drop of a hat if it no longer forms part of their marketing strategy. Motorsport is not their core business. At the end of the day, if they won’t sell on Monday, why should they bother trying to win on Sunday?

But it was Max Mosley who originally moulded F1 into a sport dominated by manufacturers. He said that teams like Williams were not his vision of F1’s future. Now Williams is the model of the sort of team that will occupy around half of the grid next year.

In a sense, you can see this current phase as the F1 equivalent of a market correction. The bubble has burst. But while it seems painful now, this process paves the way for a more stable situation.

Throughout its history, Formula 1 has had a healthy mixture of manufacturer involvement and privateer passion. In recent years, the scales had tipped a bit too far towards the manufacturers, which drowned out the privateers to an almost dangerous extent.

F1 had become the plaything of manufacturers and multi-trillionaires. Let us not forget that alongside the likes of Honda and Toyota, businessmen such as Dietrich Mateschitz and Vijay Mallya — who have more money than they know what to do with — have bankrolled F1 teams to success. You will notice that, ignoring the ‘For Sale’ sign outside Toro Rosso (which isn’t very prominent), these teams have remained in F1, unlike the manufacturers.

They are a bit more like privateers in the traditional sense. They don’t want to sell cars, though they may want to sell drinks. But in a way they are in F1 because they are attracted to it as a sport, just as people like Frank Williams and Ken Tyrrell were. Manufacturers just do it because they feel like they should.

Next year there might be too few manufacturers. For there to be just three companies supplying engines would be a situation almost as unsustainable as what has happened up to this year. Cosworth may be crossing their fingers though. Their business model might work if they supply more teams.

But I can see Renault playing a happy role as an engine supplier, even if the Renault F1 team is put up for sale. I am certain that there would be a lot of interest from serious people wanting to buy the team. Despite the turmoil of this year’s scandal, and the fact that the team has gone off the boil for the past few years, this is a team that has the facilities and the capabilities to win World Championships.

I would be upset to see Renault leave the sport. I have a bit of a soft spot for them. Toyota were cold and clinical, on top of being comically bad considering their budgets.

Honda were always a bit of a fairweather presence. They took over BAR more-or-less because there was no-one else to do it after tobacco companies left the sport. Then they set up Super Aguri because they were scared to sack Takuma Sato properly. While many were attracted to Super Aguri for their pluck and while struggling at the back in difficult circumstances, it should never be forgotten that Super Aguri was always a crass and expensive publicity stunt.

Renault, though, have real heritage. They have a history in the shape of their involvement in the sport in the 1970s and 1980s. And the current incarnation of the team has been notably successful, mostly for being the one team that has been able to put up a sustained fight against Ferrari in this decade by beating the Scuderia two years in a row.

Here’s hoping that Renault don’t decide to depart. I am especially hopeful for Robert Kubica, a hugely talented driver who after being put through the wringer at BMW this year does not need this again. But, unlike the other teams, I have a feeling that the future of the Enstone-based squad will be perfectly safe no matter who owns it.

The day after Bridgestone announced that they would be leaving Formula 1, it emerged that Toyota were poised to do the same. This was not as much of a shock as Bridgestone’s exit, but it is nonetheless major news.

Toyota are the third major manufacturer to leave F1 in just twelve months, and now rumours furiously swirl around Renault as well. But, as you may have gathered from the tone of my last article about Toyota, I find it too difficult to get upset about them leaving.

Today, Toyota company president Akio Toyoda apologised for Toyota’s inability to win a race in its eight season long campaign. It was noted that Toyota probably needed a win in order to secure their future in F1. Had a Toyota taken a chequered flag this year, may they have been given a reprieve?

I was intrigued also by Akio Toyoda’s words: “I offer my deepest apologies to Toyota’s many fans.” Which Toyota fans? I have never met one. They have been easily the least attractive team for their entire existence. Their policy of designing their car by committee was wholly unsuited to F1, and their strategy of employing mediocre drivers was not at all endearing.

How ironic that the cold and calculating Toyota F1 project should show some emotion when it is carrying out its most calculating move yet, to place the jobs of all of its workers under immediate threat. Akio Toyoda was tearful while mentioning the workers during the announcement of the company’s withdrawal.

You have to feel sorry for the staff at the team’s base in Cologne. While any F1 team finding itself in trouble is bad news for that team’s workers, those based in Britain are insulated somewhat by the fact that there are always a few other teams just down the road.

Those who have families in Germany will not find it so easy to turn to another team in motorsport to help them pay their mortgage. The closest conceivable option for those wanting to remain in F1 is the Hinwil, Switzerland-based team formerly known as BMW Sauber. But of course the future of that team is also on a knife-edge. They probably have all the staff they need anyway.

Many are also sympathising with Kamui Kobayashi, the rookie Toyota protégé who had a spirited two races at the tail end of the 2009 season. Alan Henry even went as far as to say that Kobayashi is, “the very best Japanese driver I have ever seen.”

Steady on there! Yes, Kobayashi was very impressive in his two F1 races. But he was, after all, racing for his career. He didn’t have the funds to do yet another GP2 season, and he was lucky to get his F1 break. But if he didn’t succeed in his stint, he was going back to work in a sushi restaurant.

As such, Kobayashi was highly-motivated, and took the risks he needed to take to stand out. Would he be like this in normal circumstances? It is impossible to tell. But his GP2 form was not exactly exciting. And let us not forget that he arguably caused a big accident when he moved across on Kazuki Nakajima at Interlagos.

Now Toyota have left F1, thereby leaving Kobayashi without a drive. Now he is a hero; a martyr. I am not terribly sure that status is deserved. Nonetheless, I hope he doesn’t have to put his sushi preparation skills to use for a while yet.

Toyota’s sharp exit from F1 does perhaps explain their odd behaviour surrounding drivers towards the tail end of this season. Timo Glock suffered from mysterious illnesses and injuries which paved the way for Kobayashi to get a drive.

Perhaps Glock was asked nicely to stand aside for two races so that the team could give Kobayashi a “sorry” present. “Sorry for not finding that seat in F1 for you after all your years of hard work in our young driver programme. Here are a couple of consolation races.”

Perhaps the biggest point to chew over is what this means for motorsport in Japan. Axis of Oversteer notes:

Toyota and Honda left F1 as has Bridgestone. Kawasaki dropped out of MotoGP. Suzuki and Subaru quit the WRC and Mitsubishi has called off its Dakar efforts.

I find it unimaginable that Japan might not be represented at all in F1. For there to be an exodus across top-line motorsport is seriously worrying. Here is hoping that it is just a blip as the Japanese motor industry goes through a particularly tough time.

The end of this season has not been a particularly healthy one for Formula 1. Two major names have left, and another has had an emergency meeting to consider if it should leave too.

First of all, the sole tyre supplier, Bridgestone, has announced that it will quit F1 at the end of 2011 when its current contract ends. This came as a shock. With the spotlight on car manufacturers, it doesn’t seem to have entered anyone’s mind that a company such as Bridgestone, which has been so incredibly loyal to the sport, would consider upping sticks.

I can remember a time when Bridgestone were not in F1, but only just. When I started watching Formula 1 in the mid-1990s, Goodyear was the sole tyre supplier. But Bridgestone entered in 1997, beginning the “tyre war”. When Goodyear left soon afterwards, it was not long until Michelin came in to begin an even fiercer tyre war.

I wasn’t a big fan of the tyre war. Mostly, one tyre was a major advantage over the other, so we were essentially left with two championships — a Bridgestone championship and a Michelin championship. Considering Bridgestone practically tailor-made their tyres to suit Ferrari, this essentially made Ferrari a shoo-in for the championship every year. That was until the 2005 regulations — which banned mid-race tyre changes — handed the advantage to Michelin in a big way.

2005 was the year when the tyre war well and truly jumped the shark. In the quest for the competitive edge, both companies had made their tyres softer and softer. The resurfaced banking at Indianapolis bit, Michelins exploded all over the shop and we were left with a farcical race in which only the six Bridgestone-shod cars competed.

On the back of the problems, the FIA decided that a sole company should supply the tyres for all the teams. The problem with this was that it had the potential to severely reduce the amount of exposure that tyre company got. With no tyre war to talk about, people might not talk about tyres. For this reason, Michelin refused to have any further part in F1.

The upshot was that Bridgestone and the FIA colluded to concoct the maddest new rules and gimmicks in order to contrive some interest in the tyres. One has to paint green lines all over the tyre in a crass attempt to pretend they care about the environment. Of course, the green on the tyres clashes with teams’ liveries, making the scheme not only nonsensical, but also damn ugly.

Teams are also forced to use a sub-optimal tyre compound at some point during the race. While this may have superficially “spiced up” the action, it is artificial. Drivers are critical of it, and Fernando Alonso even said that he would rather race with wet tyres on a dry circuit.

Moreover, there is a sense that Bridgestone may have deliberately made their tyres behave strangely in an attempt to get drivers and teams discussing tyres with the media. Nick Heidfeld has said that the tyres could be “ten times better”. Joe Saward expanded:

The Bridgestones react differently on each car and finding the tricks that make them work is not easy. Some drivers can do it at some tracks and not at others. Even World Championship challenger Jenson Button has struggled with this…

Bridgestone seems to have concluded that it is better to have people talking about the tyres rather than not talking about them – even if a lot of the references are negative.

I rejoiced when it was announced that a “control” tyre was to be brought in. But it has brought the wrong sort of control. I am not too sure that the current dark behaviour is an improvement over the honest competition of the tyre war.

If you have reached the stage where your marketing strategy is to have people make negative comments about your product, it probably is time to call it a day.

In many ways, Bridgestone get a huge amount of brand exposure through their involvement in F1. As noted in this week’s Formula1Blog.com podcast, you simply cannot watch a Grand Prix without learning that Bridgestone supply the tyres. Yet, after thirteen seasons (fifteen by the time they leave), the marginal returns to their investment must surely have diminished to almost zero. And As Keith at F1 Fanatic has pointed out, their costs are set to soar as they now have to supply twelve or thirteen teams rather than ten.

Nonetheless, it is a shock and a surprise that Bridgestone, a company that has stuck with F1 through thick and thin since 1997, has so abruptly pulled the plug. Now the FIA and Bernie Ecclestone will have a big headache trying to find someone to take Bridgestone’s place. With bridges burned with Goodyear and Michelin, and Pirelli uninterested, options seem thin on the ground.

It has to be said, unintended consequences are never far away in the world of F1 rule changes. For just one example, take a look at how quickly aerodynamic flick-ups have resurfaced, despite their supposed banning. Skate fins? What on earth?

Now we are presented with a number of oddities that have come about as a result of this season’s new testing restrictions. In-season testing is banned completely. Each team is limited to 15,000km, but according to James Allen it looks as though no teams will top 10,000km, because this year’s testing events have been so heavily disrupted. Teams that go to Portugal and Spain get relentlessly rained on. Those that go to Bahrain are treated to sandstorms.

Moreover, what little testing time there is has been eaten into by the need to test 2010-spec tyres. The bans in refuelling and tyre warmers coming into effect next season will put different demands on the tyres. As such, Bridgestone need to get data so that they don’t end up barking up the wrong tree as they develop the new tyres. But with no opportunity to do this later on in the season, some teams (McLaren and BMW) have had to sacrifice some time from their already tight pre-season test schedule.

Now McLaren’s test driver Pedro de la Rosa has expressed concerns that the lack of test time is actually dangerous for reserve drivers. Should a reserve have to come in for some reason, he will be thrown into the deep end, straight into the action having had little experience of the car. That would be bad enough in a normal year, but with the radical rule changes that have come into force this season you can expect out-of-practice drivers to be even rustier.

Now it is becoming obvious that the testing restrictions are damaging the careers of young drivers. All winter, it had looked as though Rubens Barrichello’s chances of retaining his seat at Honda / Brawn were close to zero. Reading some reports, you’d believe that Bruno Senna was practically a shoo-in.

Now it looks as though Barrichello has been given the nod, leaving Senna with nowhere to go. The ever-excellent Grandprix.com trailed the possibility a few days ago, noting that “Barrichello is a better bet [than Senna] as his experience will be useful in a year when there is little opportunity for young drivers to learn how to drive F1 cars.”

From this perspective, it looks like Honda / Brawn have made the right decision here. Moreover, Barrichello outperformed Button last season, and it would have been a real shame if Barrichello’s career ended with a snub. Mind you, there is the risk that Barrichello will have a David Coulthard-style final season of doom, and we wouldn’t really want that.

But what now for Bruno Senna? Holding out for an F1 seat, he has more or less ruled out staying in GP2 for a third season. Indeed, it is difficult to see what he could achieve with another year in GP2. Drivers who spend too long in a category like GP2 tend to have their potential stunted.

In a sense, this is a predicament which is yet another symptom of the serial mismanagement at Honda which has deteriorated this winter to extreme levels for obvious reasons. Senna sounds pretty frustrated over this situation, and wouldn’t you be?

But any other year it would be no big deal. Senna could sign as a test driver for one year, as countless other drivers have done before, and spend the season racking up the miles on the test track in preparation for his first full season. And should he needed to replace another driver mid-season, he would have experience required of him.

Failing that, he could have gone on to make a decent career as a test driver. It may not have the glamour of a race role, and you can bet your bottom dollar that all test drivers yearn to race. But it is, at least, a decent income earned from driving cars — and they can always hope. People like Luca Badoer, Marc Gené, Anthony Davidson, Alexander Wurz and, yes, Pedro de la Rosa, have all made a decent living out of testing F1 cars. Felipe Massa started out at Ferrari as a test driver, and today he challenges for Championships.

Now what? All Bruno Senna can do is twiddle his thumbs. He can always suffer the humiliation of going back cap in hand to a GP2 seat. But this could backfire on him, and all the best seats have already been filled.

Could this be one reason why there is only going to be one rookie this season? Sébastien Buemi is the only newcomer to F1 this season, but he has done plenty of testing for the Red Bull teams and he is filling a vacancy that David Coulthard voluntarily left behind.

Remember when everyone was certain that Renault were not going to re-sign Nelsinho Piquet? Then, out of nowhere, they signed him for another season. Is that because, for all his faults, he at least has experience that the likes of Romain Grosjean and Lucas Di Grassi now cannot hope to attain?

Let us not forget another major FIA-instituted change for 2009, which is yet another instance revealing the lack of joined-up thinking inside the FIA. This season sees the inauguration of Max Mosley’s Formula Two project. Remember, this new feeder series was supposedly invented specifically to make it easier for young drivers to reach F1.

Well, it’s all very well adding yet another “second-top” rung in an already-cluttered world that contains GP2, A1GP and World Series by Renault among others. But the top rung now has a fundamental crack that will cause the ladder collapse when a driver reaches it, sending him — and his career — crashing to the floor.

There might be an allowance in F1 for “young driver training”, but this is no more than a fig leaf. A “young driver” is someone who has not tested on more than four days in the past 24 months. How is a young driver supposed to progress with such scant “training”?

Max Mosley likes to use F2 to make out that he is opening doors for young drivers. The reality is that this door leads drivers up the garden path. There have seldom, if ever, been as many feeder series as there are today. An F1 team can take their pick from 20+ GP2 drivers, countless A1GP drivers, anyone from WSR who takes their fancy and goodness knows how many F3 drivers. F2 isn’t needed, especially now that young drivers will find the welcome mat at F1’s door cruelly swiped from their feet.

By the end of 2006, I was thoroughly fed up with the tyre war. When Michelin left Formula 1 I was glad. This wasn’t because I have anything against the French company, but because I was simply fed up with championships seemingly being decided almost entirely by tyres — literally black boxes. Formula 1 had become a glorified tyre championship.

Two years on, and I’m beginning to wonder if anything actually changed. Even with a single tyre manufacturer, the performance of the teams seems to fluctuate wildly for seemingly little reason. And what is that reason? Tyres of course.

This seems to be the stock excuse that explains just about everything in F1. If Sébastien Bourdais is not performing, it’s the tyres. If Nick Heidfeld is struggling in qualifying, it’s the tyres. If Kimi Räikkönen is trundling around in 6th place, it’s the tyres.

Now Ferrari have been complaining about the compounds that Bridgestone have chosen in recent races, claiming that Bridgestone have tended to edge towards the harder end of the range. Hard tyres, we now know, suit McLaren well, whereas Ferrari prefer softer tyres.

Ferrari’s technical director, Aldo Costa, complained in particular about the compounds that Bridgestone took to Hockenheim — a race that the McLaren of Lewis Hamilton dominated:

I think the last race for us was very difficult for finding the good grip from the tyres, but we were not the only team. Most of the drivers were having, during the race mainly, a lot of problems to find grip.

The tyres were very, very hard, probably too hard for that kind of circuit, especially the hard tyre. There was no wear at all; the tyre just was not working for that kind of circuit. This was valid for us and it was valid as well for most of the teams.

It is a bit rich for Ferrari to be complaining about Bridgestone. The Japanese tyre company has spent the best part of the past decade pandering to the Scuderia’s every need while every other Bridgestone runner was told to suck it. At least Bridgestone are now treating their role as sole tyre supplier to F1 without favouring their old partners any more.

Bridgestone’s Hirohide Hamashima has backed up the theory:

“Basically the Ferrari has more of a tendency to understeer than the McLaren,” Hamashima told autosport.com. “The McLaren is a little bit oversteery. When the tyre has good grip, the car with the oversteer tendency will be quicker over a single lap than a neutral or understeering car.

“But when you think about racing conditions – especially with the temperatures we had at the Hungaroring – then an oversteering car will have heat generating at the rear much higher than the understeering car.

“Looking at Hungary and (Lewis) Hamilton’s car behaviour, after a few laps he struggled with oversteer – so he was making lots of counter-steering movements. On the other hand the Ferrari had a good balance after a few laps.

“That’s why the temperature is making a difference.”

I have learned this year that even with just one tyre manufacturer in F1, tyres still make a huge difference to a team’s performance. You could argue that, when everyone is given the same tyres to use, it is up to the teams to find a way to maximise the performance of the tyres themselves. However, with four compounds for Bridgestone to choose from, the teams simply have to build their cars not knowing which tyres they will end up using most often.

Perhaps F1 could bring in a genuine control tyre, where Bridgestone make just one compound of tyre for all circuits so that the teams will know exactly what to expect all season. However, Bridgestone would be dead against this because they want people to talk about the tyres more often. Also the performance of the tyres would probably vary from team to team depending on the weather conditions and the characteristics of each circuit.

I suppose I should just accept that tyres will always play a huge role in motor racing. With tyres being the only part of the car that really propels the vehicle, their importance ought not to be such a surprise. But I’d even rather be talking about how important silly aerodynamic pieces like shark fins are than talk about these dull, dull, dull tyres.