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Many who remember the days when one, maximum two, motor manufacturers graced grand prix grids – usually as engine supplier, at that – wish for a return to days of team owner-engineers and fast thinking entrepreneurs. Budget caps, they say, will herald a return to the ‘good ole days', a time in Formula 1's history when ingenuity and not wallets reigned supreme, when F1 was fun, when politics were games played by dour-faced gents revelling in their inherited titles.

But, those who view the sport through rose-tinted spectacles need be exceedingly careful about what they wish for, for a wholesale departure of manufacturer teams is almost guaranteed to cause the sport to implode, so dependent has F1 become on their free-spending ways.

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