Late in the day, BMW has done the decent thing and it surprised me that they did not do that unprompted. I guess they were trying to squeeze every last Euro from their investment, which is ironical given the cash they have thrown at F1. They spent a huge amount to burnish the company's image and then threw away a lot of the goodwill with a pfennig-pinching approach to the endgame.

If you cannot win with Williams. you are not going to win with Sauber plus corporate suits. The more suits a company shovels into a racing project, the harder it is for the team. This is because the suits are there on a temporary basis and they care more about their standing in their real jobs, with the corporation. This was among Toyota's problems.

The Ford GT40 would have been much better, sooner, had suits from Detroit not tipped up at Lola and interfered with Eric Broadley and Tony Southgate who knew what they were doing. Tony had the choice, so he left to join Brabham. I have lost count of the number of times I have seen Len Bailey credited with the GT40, but this was Ford politics. The GT40 was a Lola design, messed about by suits. I have yet to discover a successful car designed by Len Bailey.

Ford bought Lola on an exclusive basis for a year, and paid for a new factory at Slough for seven years. Suits demanded that the GT40 had a steel monocoque so the hundreds they would sell could be repaired anywhere. The Lola T70 was the car that Broadley wanted to make for Ford. My sources are Eric Broadley and Tony Southgate.

To be fair to BMW, the company did continue to pay the wages and work continued on the 2010 car though it must have been difficult to maintain enthusiasm and commitment in between writing job applications. BMW could have played it better.

Toyota could have exited with more grace as well. Five hundred people have lost their jobs and the official line is that they will be okay, they are motor racing people, they are used to that sort of thing. To underline the fact, Toyota made the point that people of 32 nationalities were on the team, it was a just a stopping off point for a merry band of wandering engineers.

In point of fact, most of those made redundant will have been recruited from around Cologne because that is how a factory operates. They will not have been engineers, they will have been fabricators, secretaries, regular people doing regular jobs. I thought that Toyota's breezy statement was crass.

Toyota may have data for sale, or maybe not. Here is another company confused over the endgame. Like BMW, Toyota had no need for Formula One apart from satisfying a few executives. BMW at least had the sense to align itself with a proper motor racing concern. Toyota had the arrogance to believe it could do it all by itself. This is the company that was banned from the World Rally Championship for cheating.

Toyota had a supercar under development and the plan was to launch it as soon as they won a Grand Prix. The supercar has arrived, badged as a Lexus, and they really think they can sell a few, priced at half a million dollars. Anyone care to guess how many they will sell?

Note to Cologne police investigating the stolen Ferrari data which arrived at Toyota. I can suggest a name additional to those already charged. Check out the internal e.mails for May, 2003, and see who ordered all the Ferrari data to be destroyed. This slimeball is still on the payroll.

There are rumours that Stefan GP may be interested in buying Toyota data and Stefan GP has employed Mike Coughlan, of McLaren, prior to Stepneygate, to head its design staff.

(Note to Trudi Coughlan, if Stefan GP does buy Toyota data, you do not have to go to a local shop to get it copied. This time it will be above board. Why do I know that Trudi is one of those daft tarts who wears sunglasses on the tops of their heads where they do not actually work?)

Stefan GP is said to have the backing of the Serbian government. I would have thought that Serbia had a few needs more pressing than investing in Formula One.

While they moil and toil towards their ambition, I have advice. Lose the name. Steve GP? You may as well call it Clive, Malcolm, or Marvin. Or Trudi.

Would any major manufacturer launch a car called Steve? Actually, Honda did have the Cedric and the Parsley, on the home market. This is in accordance with the Japanese principle that they name cars no Japanese can pronounce, like the Corolla.

Steve GP is just silly.

It seems that Henkel sponsorship for the Mercedes-Benz team may not be forthcoming. Henkel is a company with many interests, it markets Persil in Germany so viter than vite it is. It seems that a senior executive persuaded Brawn GP that Henkel was in for mega-millions.

The executive would not have dealt with Ross Brawn, sponsorship is the responsibility of Nick Fry, long time a pin-up boy at Pitpass. No German executive would have tried it on with Daimler Benz. Within the company, it is always Daimler Benz.

Nearly 20 years ago a member of the board of BMW commissioned a BMW F1 design. The company that received the commission was Simtek, now the main technical consultant to Virgin. The member of the BMW board did not have the authority to commission a car.