Honda went 11 months ago, BMW pulled out at the end of July and now Toyota has bought its undistinguished and massively expensive presence in Formula One to a close. The sport is continuing to pay for its reliance on big car manufacturers who have been among the worst hit by the global recession, with Japanese car companies in particularly bad shape.

So far Formula One has been able to ride with the punches. Honda allowed a management buyout led by Ross Brawn to save that team, and the BMW operation has been bought by the enigmatic QADBAK Holdings, although it has yet to secure a grid slot for next season. Whether Toyota's operations based at Cologne can be saved in some way remains to be seen. The Japanese car giant will also have to settle up with Bernie Ecclestone, the Formula One commercial rights holder, because it has signed up for participation in the sport until the end of 2012, an undertaking it is now breaking.

The abrupt withdrawal of Toyota is bad news; the question now is whether that is the end of the stampede for the exit of the most expensive paddock in the world. The French car giant Renault has been teetering on the verge of pulling the plug on its own operations. It may only have been stopped from doing so because the FIA decided to let it off when the World Motor Sport Council handed out punishments at the end of the so-called "Crashgate" saga in late September.

Global car companies are leaving Formula One for two reasons. They cannot be seen to be spending frivolously on Formula One when their core businesses are in such dire straits and, the ones that have left have all struggled to succeed in the world's pinnacle series in motor sport. Honda spent hundreds of millions over the years and achieved only one race win as a manufacturer. BMW Sauber managed just one win in four years. And Toyota are infamous for having spent more money than almost any other team in eight seasons in the sport and never reached the top of the podium once.

Toyota's Formula One operation was bedevilled by its split personality with its base in Germany but its paymaster and senior management in Tokyo. It also suffered, as did Honda, by being saddled with the formal and long-winded Japanese tradition of corporate management which is unsuited to the swift changes of direction required in the sport. The Toyota team lacked self-belief and was regarded as an expensive failure. Even when its drivers - most recently Timo Glock and Jarno Trulli - qualified well there was little expectation that they or the team had the grit to pull off a race win.

Both Glock and Trulli were already on the driver market before the company decided to pull out. Like hundreds of other employees of "Panasonic Toyota Racing", their futures are uncertain.