Formula One closed another season at last Sunday's Japanese Grand Prix. As usual, some of the participants left Japan with a smile on their faces while others were left hoping for brighter days. Atlas F1's Karl Ludvigsen takes a look at who was hot and who has a lot of work to do over the winter

The results at Suzuka couldn't have been worse for BMW-Williams. They lost out on the Constructors' Championship and, what's worse, looked bad doing it with Montoya falling out with hydraulic problems and Ralf charging about the field ineffectually to finish twelfth, splitting the Jaguars. In ebullient contrast, McLaren-Mercedes finished the year in magnificent style in Japan with two drivers on the podium sharing the glory of a great win for Rubens Barrichello.

The battle between the two proud German companies - which I've highlighted in the past - thus ended with BMW-Williams two points ahead of McLaren-Mercedes in the constructors' column, but that counts for little. The excitement of the race itself was all about whether McLaren's Raikkonen could challenge for the drivers' title, with the Ferrari-Williams fight for constructors' points strictly a side issue. The season's final story swirled around Mercedes, not BMW, and that will make a lot of people in Munich very unhappy. As Gerhard Berger said, this was the year BMW was to win a Championship. Their failure to achieve this at Suzuka will be bitter gall and wormwood for the Bavarians.

Ending the season on a down note is never salutary for the winter's preparations, and BMW-Williams has certainly done that. Their options are few. They were thoroughly explored during the negotiations that led to the new contract between the two companies, about which BMW admitted that it had no realistic partner save Williams. The idea of building its own car was always on the table, but more as a negotiating tactic vis a vis Williams than as a realistic undertaking. Their partnership has deepened now, giving BMW more technical input, but Williams will remain a staunchly independent entity. "After all," said one observer, "how much control of McLaren does Mercedes get from its 40 percent share in the company?" Not a lot. And BMW needed the new contract just as much as Williams in order to keep the Grove outfit from contracting for engines with another supplier.

Then there are the Japanese, very much in the public (and TV director's) eye at Suzuka. Toyota will be steaming at the performance it witnessed. Da Matta was only in the points, at seventh, by virtue of this season's new structure, and the heralded Olivier Panis a paltry tenth. At no time did the Toyotas look like doing anything interesting in their race on Japanese soil. In the circumstances their performance was catastrophic. They too go into the winter season on a down note with an eighth-place points finish and their best driver a lowly 13th. Toyota's only good news is the engagement of Mike Gascoyne, who will bring the team some fresh ideas. Gustav Brunner has done well enough but even he admits that alternative design approaches are needed so that the best choices can be made. Gascoyne will bring them.

Honda, in sharp contrast, will be cock-a-hoop about its performance at Suzuka. Button looked in sight of that elusive podium before finishing fourth, half a minute behind, while Sato's sixth-place finish was a fabulous gift to Honda by courtesy of Jacques Villeneuve. Winter bragging rights in Japan thus go to Honda with a big margin over Toyota, a state of affairs that Toyota will not long tolerate. Honda will do all it can to maintain its superiority in 2004 and push hard for a higher ranking, aided by the BAR pen of Geoff Willis.

As for the Occidental mass-marketers, only Renault can hold its head high after Japan with Jarno Trulli's fifth-place finish and a strong performance from Alonso in the early laps that was cut short. Renault's final points tally of 88 doesn't look like much alongside the triple-digit tallies of the Big Three, but it's only four points short of the total racked up by the five teams that trail it in the season's results. Even though it was only fourth in the final reckoning, Renault's program is fully viable because on most weekends it met the three criteria of Ludvigsen's Law of Motor Racing: look good, go fast, and finish.

Contrast this with the figure cut by the Ford Motor Company. We've had wave after wave of words from Richard Parry-Jones and people at Jaguar and Jordan about how great everything's going to be, but the actual performance has been dismal. With Webber eleventh and Wilson 13th Suzuka was a poor show for Jaguar-Cosworth, and it's best to draw a sympathetic veil over the job done there by Jordan-Ford, whose Firman was 14th. Ford looks to Formula One to give it an uplift from all its troubles in Europe and America; instead it's a financial and psychic drain that shows no sign of turning positive. This will not be a happy winter in the Dearborn boardroom when Formula One is on the agenda.

I have to smile at the positive spin that Eddie Jordan gave to the purchase by Ireland's Merrion Capital of the 49.9-percent share in his company held by Warburg Pincus. With Jordan now at one of its historic lows, we can be sure that the shares changed hands for a lot less than the $67 million that Warburgs paid back in 1998, when it looked like eager new entrants would be fighting for slots among the 11 starting teams. With those days long gone, Warburgs were keen to cut their losses and Merrion had a chance to buy in at a low price for the shares. Although we headed our piece "Jordan Boosted by New Investors," this was more a result of Eddie's blarney than a reflection of the facts. He's just exchanged one set of shareholders for another with no financial benefit to his operations.

As for the tyre-company boardrooms, they should be satisfied. Both suppliers came away from this last race with credit for their achievements. Bridgestone and Michelin had their problems on the track, with the variable weather, and stepped up to them well. Their tyres were sprinkled throughout the results list at Suzuka, thanks to the fine result for BAR-Honda on Bridgestones. And we hear that they want to switch to Michelins. Some people - thank goodness for the sport - are never satisfied.

About the author:
Long time columnist at Atlas F1, Karl Ludvigsen is an award-winning author and historian who managed racing programs for Fiat in America in the late 1970s and Ford of Europe in the early 1980s. He is the author of seven books about racing drivers and numerous books about classic racing cars and engines, all of which draw extensively on the many images in his Ludvigsen Library in Suffolk, England.