Honda
Perhaps even more so than Renault, Honda had looked until very recently to be firmly seated in F1's departure lounge. Upon its return to F1 in 2015, The Japanese manufacturer had been badly burned by a disastrous partnership with McLaren that left them second from last in the 2017 constructors championship.
That sort of failure was a terrible stain on Honda's honour. It was made even worse by the scathing criticism from all sides, not least from two-time world champion Fernando Alonso. The company could hardly get out of its contract with McLaren quickly enough, a short-term engine supply deal with Toro Rosso (and a year later with Red Bull) giving Honda same face-saving cover until the management could finally pull the plug on its F1 misadventure altogether.
Coronavirus could give Honda's management the pretext it needs to finally achieve its exit from F1
And then it really all went horribly wrong for Honda's management, precisely because the team's fortunes on the track were improving dramatically. Just as the crucial vote was coming up in Tokyo, the Honda F1 project started to pick up pole positions, podium finishes and even three victories in 2019, the latter courtesy of Max Verstappen. Within weeks, Japan - which as a country had been averting its eyes to the whole embarrassing F1 debacle - was suddenly once again swept up in a sense of national fervour for motor sport. That crucial board vote was discretely postponed, the deals with Red Bull and the newly named AlphaTauri extended, and their exit from F1 indefinitely thwarted.
However the arrival on the scene of coronavirus could very well turn all that around again, by giving the Honda board the pretext it needs to finally pull off its previously planned exit from F1. After all, the pandemic is likely to lead to a worldwide recession and it was just such a sharp economic downturn in 1992 that triggered Honda's original departure from the sport at the peak of its power and success. If it made that calculation almost three decades ago then there's good reason to think that the board will not hesitate to arrive at the same conclusion again in 2020 to protect its broader corporate interests. It's simply what multinational companies do at a time of crisis.
