"Bai-bai" Super Aguri

Aguri Suzuki takes his toys and goes home

It should come as no surprise to most that Aguri Suzuki of 'Super Aguri F1' have officially withdrawn from the 2008 F1 season (and likely from the sport).  While unfortunate for the "Super-Best-Friends" team, the sport of Formula 1 is not for the timid, nor the cash-starved.

Several sponsorship pull-outs definitely hurt Super Aguri and caused them to start the season with an untested car and heavy reliance on Honda's generousity, but it is the ruling that each team must manufacture their own car that closed the coffin on the team's challenge.

The precedent that all teams must manufacture their own chassis has been one of the few truly consistent features of this sport and it is very important that this standard is maintained.  While it would have been "nice" to see Super Aguri F1 continue in the sport, its not in the best interest of the sport in general. 

All other teams currently manufacture their own cars, so why should Super Aguri be allowed to use a 'customer' chassis from Honda (or Ferrari or McLaren...)?

I'm not one to halt progress, and in fact I try to champion change in any way that I can in my professional and personal life, but I do not see it as 'progress' to make such a fundamental change to Formula 1 which would allow anyone who can write a big enough check to join the sport.

Formula 1 requires more than money - it requires an innate skill to outthink your competitors, an insurmountable drive to excel and the raw engineering talent to get the last thousandth of a percent from a car's performance.

There have been some successes in Formula 1 with teams started by a single person with a dream: McLaren, Jordan, Tyrell, and Williams to name a few.  But out of these, half of them are no longer competing. 

The days of starting a team in your garage are over, no matter how big that garage might seem.  To make a serious attempt at success in Formula 1 requires a large automotive sponsor.  Obviously, Super Aguri has skilled drivers and a talented team - they just couldn't afford to manufacture their own car.  If Suzuki wants to own a top-level racing teamp, now that the Champ Car/IRL split is officially over, there would be no shame in joining them.

That being said, what happened to all the other successful and profitable car manufacturers stepping up to make a mid-season pitch to bail out the Super Aguri effort?

I challenge Hyundai to enter the sport of Formula 1!  Maybe next year we could have an 'Elantra' pace car!  And in a few years, we could have a Korean F1 race!