Despair, Doom, Death for Formula 1, but One Thing Left in Pandora's Box

Everything terrible in the world, according to the Greek myth, erupted from the box which Pandora opened. I know I seem a little hyperbolic, comparing F1 to the world (and hypocritical, seeing as most of my comments go along the "F1 is doomed" lines), but I'm going to take a positive viewpoint and make this comparison anyway, as there seem to be quite a few articles predicting the end of F1.

In Greek mythology, there is the story of "Pandora's Box." Zeus handed Pandora a box, instructing her not to open it, but also gave her the gift of curiosity (not a great combination).

Upon opening the box, she released disease, despair, malice, greed, old age, death, hatred, violence, cruelty, and war. Quickly she closed it again, keeping only hope inside.

Now it doesn't really take a member of MENSA to guess where I'm going with this. F1's finally been hit by the "Credit Crunch," and is seemingly impermeable no longer.

Honda has been hit severely by the global crunch, its car sales are down by 41 percent from last year. Ouch. So Honda, as I'm sure you've read, have shut up shop, cutting their losses, call it what you will.

After dusting the F1 rule book, it states inside that there must be 18 cars on the grid at the start of the season. With Honda gone, only 18 cars remain, but are all the other teams going to be able to weather the storm, bearing in mind that Honda had the biggest budget of them all?

Doom, despair, and the death of F1. The Panic Button (forgive the pun) has been hit. No more races, no more fastest laps, no more championships, no more (lets face it, we love them) crashes, and no more F1.

Ah, but wait. Hope remains for those optimists, those who walk out of the house despite the black cloud over their head. And it will be the optimists among us who see us through this financial crisis.

Three people are poking their nose in at Brackley already, and people with seemingly bottomless pockets, may I add. There is a high chance someone is going to take a hefty chunk in Toro Rosso, and, although I would have snorted with laughter at Max Mosley for this a week ago, standard engines for those who want to make the break into F1.

Hope is still in the box for those who wish to seek it.