• Reuters, [London] Times, Wednesday, November 4, 2009 12:30 PM

Mark Meadows' blog on Reuters has a picture of Toyota team principal Tadashi Yamashina tearing up as the company announced today that it was withdrawing from Formula One racing. Company president Akio Toyoda, who has been apologizing a lot lately, did so again -- this time for the team's repeated failures since joining the circuit in 2002. Toyota spent about $300 million annually on the sponsorship.

Toyota's exit may not signal the end of big car companies exiting Formula One, writes Edward Gorman, motor racing correspondent for the London Times. Honda and BMW have already departed, although their teams have been rescued, and Renault is "teetering."

There are two reasons why automakers are leaving the sport: one, they cannot be seen to be spending frivolously when their core businesses are in such dire straits; and two, the companies that have left were perennial losers on the track. Toyota, in fact, was infamous for the money it spent without ever having taken a victory lap. "The Toyota team lacked self-belief and was regarded as an expensive failure," Gorman writes.

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