As the 700 employees at Brackley and their families, not to mention those workers at the numerous companies that supply components for the Honda F1 Team, wait on news that a buyer might have been found, Bernie Ecclestone has once again demonstrated that, in terms of F1 certainly, he has little room for sentiment.

Two weeks before Christmas, as the F1 paddock holds its breath in anticipation of a buyer being found, Ecclestone has virtually said good riddance to Honda.

"Honda will be no great loss," he is quoted as saying by the Daily Telegraph. "Just look at where they finished in the championship... ninth.

"They wasted millions and were a bad example to other teams," he added. "Now they've gone, we've got a chance to bring in some sense to the teams about how much they should spend.

"I'm keen for the team to be kept in place," he continued, claiming. "We have whittled it down to three serious potential buyers."

Reviving memories of some of his previous crass comments over the years with regards to teams and drivers leaving the sport - he once famously said, following Alain Prost's decision to retire for a second time; "in the old days there was a natural culling", he added: "In Formula One, teams come and go. It's not the end of the world. Only Ferrari has been there since the start."

Let's all hope that he is right, and that one of those "three serious potential buyers" he and his 'colleagues' have whittled it down to step up to the plate and save the team and its workers, right now they have enough to deal with without Ecclestone chipping in with his two penn'orth.