They blew £100 million this year and missed out on the reward for their generosity.

We will never know what the executives in charge at Honda really thought when Jenson Button crossed the line in Brazil on Sunday night to become Formula One world champion, but the question on millions of lips must be: was Honda’s decision to pull out of Formula One the biggest blooper in business ever?

Honda probably spent close to £1 billion over nine seasons trying to win the World Championship and just when they had their best chance, they walked away. Ross Brawn told them the prospects for 2009 were good, and Jenson Button was fired up after he saw his car, but they panicked as the global recession took hold and quit when they could have been ahead.

If only they had waited. Margaux Matrix, a media monitoring company, estimates that Honda missed out on publicity worth about £200 million during the first 15 races of the season — a figure that would rise with the worldwide exposure given to Button’s final triumph in Brazil.

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Brawn and Nick Fry, his chief executive, were given a chance to succeed after Honda weighed up the costs of closing down the team and its headquarters at Brackley, in Northamptonshire. To save face, Honda left this year’s £100 million budget in place to give Brawn and Fry a cushion as they scoured the world for sponsors — then Honda left the building for good.

Perhaps the chaps at Honda need some marketing advice from the master, Sir Richard Branson, who effectively hijacked the season with a calculated gamble.

He stuck his Virgin brand on the Brawn GP cars at the start of the season when nothing was expected of the team. He got an immediate payback for his first £250,000 at the Australian Grand Prix when Button won. The payments have risen since, although to nowhere near the £20 million-a-season level usually demanded by teams.

Margaux Matrix calculates that Virgin has enjoyed exposure worth about £37 million as a result. With Brawn GP now out of their league, Virgin plan to sponsor Manor Grand Prix, a new team, in 2010.