• Honda pulls out of F1
• F1 teams offered standard powertrain
• FIA president says further F1 manufacturer withdrawals possible
• Audi drops LMS and ALMS LMP1 programmes
• Penske and Porsche to Grand Am
• Petty NASCAR team to merge with GEM
• Ford appoints new performance vehicles director
• New motorsport trade show in Indianapolis in 2009

The Honda Motor Company has announced that it has withdrawn from Formula One with immediate effect and that the Brackley, UK based Honda Racing F1 team is to be offered for sale.

A statement signed by Honda’s president and CEO Takeo Fukui said, “We, Honda Motor Co., Ltd, have come to the conclusion that we will withdraw from all Formula One activities, making 2008 the last season of participation.

“This difficult decision has been made in light of the quickly deteriorating operating environment facing the global auto industry, brought on by the sub-prime problem in the United States, the deepening credit crisis and the sudden contraction of the world economies.

“Honda must protect its core business activities and secure the long term as widespread uncertainties in the economies around the globe continue to mount. A recovery is expected to take some time.

“Under these circumstances, Honda has taken swift and flexible measures to counter this sudden and expansive weakening of the marketplace in all business areas. However, in recognition of the need to optimize the allocation of management resources, including investment regarding the future, we have decided to withdraw from Formula One participation. We will enter into consultation with the associates of Honda Racing F1 Team and its engine supplier Honda Racing Development regarding the future of the two companies. This will include offering the team for sale.

“In its third era of Formula One activities, Honda has been participating in Formula One races from the 2000 season, initially with BAR, by adopting a new format of jointly developing racing machines.

“Subsequently, in a move to meet the changing environment surrounding Formula One, we switched to running a 100 percent Honda-owned team commencing with the 2006 season.

“Surmounting many challenges, the Honda Team achieved a Grand Prix victory in 2006, enabling Honda to receive overwhelming support from Honda fans around the world that were looking forward to greater success. It, therefore, has been an extremely difficult decision for us to come to this conclusion without having been able to fully meet the expectations of our fans.

“By making the best of what we have learned during these times of economic turmoil, coupled with the spirit of challenge gained through active participation in racing, we intend to continue with our commitment in meeting new challenges.

“Finally, we would like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank our fans and all those who have supported Honda’s Formula One efforts, including everyone in the world of Formula One.”

FIA president Max Mosley has written to the teams involved in the FIA Formula One World Championship with an offer of a standard powertrain, comprising a Cosworth engine and a transmission produced by Xtrac and Ricardo, that is intended to reduce the cost of competing.

Mosley’s letter reads:

‘Further to my letter of 18 November (copy attached for convenience), we have completed the tendering process and are now in exclusive negotiations with Cosworth together with Xtrac and Ricardo Transmissions (XR) to supply a complete Formula One power train starting in 2010. The engine will be a current Formula One engine while the transmission will be state-of-the-art Formula One and a joint effort by two companies which already supply transmissions to most of the grid.

The cost to each team taking up this option will be an up-front payment of £1.68M (€1.97M) and then £5.49M (€6.42M) per season for each of the three years of the supply contract (2010, 2011, 2012). This price is based on four teams signing up and includes full technical support at all races and official tests, plus 30,000 km of testing. The annual cost will reduce if more teams take up the option, for example to £4.99M (€5.84M) per team with eight teams. It will further reduce if less than 30,000 km of testing is required. Neither engine nor transmission will be badged.

As suggested in my letter of 18 November, teams participating in the 2010 Championship would then have three options:

- the above;

- the right to build an engine themselves, identical to the above, having been supplied with all the necessary technical information;

- the right to continue to use their existing engine, with the current ban on development and requirement for engine parity still in place (noting that the engine supplied will become the reference engine for output and other performance indicators and no engine will be permitted to exceed those indicators).

Teams opting for one of the latter two options would nevertheless use the XR transmission.

In combination with the programme of cost reductions for the chassis, race weekend and team home base outlined in my letter of 18 November, these arrangements have a number of advantages. These include:

- enabling the independent teams to survive in the current difficult economic climate; facilitating the replacement of a manufacturer team if (as seems likely) we suffer additional losses;

- stabilising Formula One while new road-relevant technologies are introduced together with a state-of-the-art high tech engine, which could be in Formula One as early as 2013 should the car industry by then be in a position to fund its development;

- avoiding any change to the Formula One spectacle and keeping the technology at current levels.

These arrangements are on the basis that at least four teams enter into contracts to use the power train described above, and do so no later than close of business (5pm CET) on Thursday 11 December 2008. In the event of fewer than four teams signing up, the FIA may still proceed but the price on offer will vary. The supply contracts will be with Cosworth but in the first instance teams are requested to make their intentions known to my office.’

Following the announcement of the ending of Honda’s participation in the Formula One World Championship, FIA president Max Mosley has warned that there is a "serious danger" another car manufacturer could withdraw from F1.

The BBC Sport website quotes Mosley as saying of a meeting of the Formula One Teams Association that took place yesterday to discuss cost cutting measure, "If the teams don't notice now what's happened, you have to abandon all hope for them. The teams who met are all subsidiaries of these big companies and they could get a fax in the morning saying: 'We're stopping this’, which is effectively what happened with Honda.

“So if they don't wake up to it now, they'll probably get a nasty shock in the future. But our job is to take action to make sure that won't happen. That's why we've sent out a letter to the teams this morning setting out or plans to get the costs right down.

"The danger with these big companies is they may follow Honda, so if we make it possible for them to compete very inexpensively, by their standards, then the situation is much safer. The objective has to be to enable a team to say to manufacturer: 'We can actually get by without a subsidy.'

"If we can achieve that, then I think we will keep the manufacturers in. If we can't, then when they're looking to cut costs - which all of them are now because car sales have collapsed - then they will start to look at F1 and say do we really need this, and come to the same conclusion as Honda.

"Our position is very simple. We will say, these are the rules for the 2010 championship. If you don't want to enter, you don't have to. If you'd like to set up your own series with unlimited expenditure you can do so, but if you want to run in the F1 world championship these are the rules."

BBC Sport also quotes F1 impresario Bernie Ecclestone who said, "F1 is in no bigger crisis than any other company in the world at the moment but the world won't stop, that's for sure."

Audi Sport has confirmed that it will not participate in the LMP1 class of the European based Le Mans Series sportscar car racing championship nor its US counterpart, the American Le Mans series.

A statement issued by Audi Sport said that it would concentrate its efforts on European based motorsport programmes for the 2009 season comprising the new R15 TDI sport prototype for the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the re-worked racing touring car A4 in the DTM series and the newly developed R8 LMS for customer use in the GT3 class of international GT racing.

The American Penske Racing organisation, based in Mooresville, North Carolina, has confirmed that it will run a Porsche powered Riley Daytona Prototype in the 2009 Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series.

Porsche’s history with Penske Racing dates back to 1972, and since the relationship started, the two organizations have shared more than 35 wins and five championships.

Penske Racing founder Roger Penske said, “We are proud to continue our long-standing relationship with Porsche. We look to continue our considerable sports car success and our team is working hard to prepare for the first event in Daytona.”

A report on the website of the American magazine Sports Illustrated says that the Petty Enterprises NASCAR team, the origins of which go back to the foundation of the US stock car racing sanctioning body in 1949, will effectively cease to exist when it merges with the rival Gillett Evernham Motorsports team.

It is as yet unclear how the merger will affect a deal that occurred in June 2008 in which the American private equity company Boston Ventures acquired a controlling interest in Petty Enterprises team, which last won a NASCAR race in 1998.

The Ford Motor Company has appointed Jost Capito to the new position of director of global performance vehicles and motorsport business development.

From January Capito will be responsible for the development of Ford's North American and European performance vehicles business and will also assume responsibility for Ford's global motorsport business strategy.

Capito, who previously worked on motorsport programmes at Porsche and the Sauber Formula One team, joined Ford of Europe in 2001 as director of special vehicle engineering. Since November 2007, he has served as vehicle line director for Ford of Europe's performance vehicles.

A new American motorsport trade show, the International Motorsports Industry Show (IMIS), is scheduled to take place on December 2-3, 2009 at the Indianapolis Convention Centre.

The International Motorsports Industry Show is owned and promoted by Performance Events Promotions (PEP) and assisted in presentation by the Indiana Motorsports Association.

Chris Paulsen, the owner of C&R Racing Inc., a co-partner in PEP and the president of the Indiana Motorsports Association said, “Indy is the Racing Capital of the World, and the IMIS show will thrive in this town which is deep in auto racing history and heritage. Our mission is to create a ‘hard-core’ racing trade show that exemplifies this rich heritage. I challenge anyone to show me a more advantageous location for a true motorsports trade show.

“This will not be a ‘fuzzy dice’ show. It will showcase only companies dealing with professional motorsports competing wheel to wheel on a race course. We will welcome the manufacturing equipment companies as well as the transportation side of the sport, as these are both key elements to the industry. Basically, if it’s not directly related to helping a race team take the checkered flag, it won’t be displayed at IMIS.”