The global economic slowdown has taken an early toll on Formula One, with Honda quitting the high-cost sport to focus more on making and selling cars at the expense of racing them.

Honda CEO Takeo Fukui told a packed news conference yesterday that the Japanese automaker was unable to continue backing a team in the high-cost F1 competition and wanted to put it up for sale.

"The automobile industry is experiencing very difficult times," Fukui said. "Demand started to dry up in November and we can't see the light at the end of the tunnel."

The withdrawal of one of the world's biggest car manufacturers will send shock waves through F1.

"This is a wake-up call," F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone told Sky News television.

"If you and I wanted to run a Formula One team, we wouldn't need to have to spend what they are spending at the moment -- probably [$2.94 million] a year to do it.

"The trouble is the teams are basically run by technicians who should probably be at home playing with their PlayStations rather than spending fortunes to win races."

Japanese team Super Aguri, which was backed by Honda, pulled out of F1 earlier in the 2008 season.

The 2009 season opens March 29 at the Australian Grand Prix.

Speculation of Honda's announcement started late Thursday in England, where the F1 team is based.

Honda's F1 chief executive Nick Fry said three prospective buyers had expressed interest in taking over the team.

"We're still hoping to be there in Melbourne," Fry said of F1's season-opening race. "This is a completely different situation from prior Formula One teams stopping. This team is one of the best funded, has the best assets, the best resources in the pit lane."

The Honda team, with an operational budget of around $294 million, finished next-to-last in ninth place in the F1 constructors' standings last season. Honda, which originally entered F1 as a constructor for a stint in the 1960s before returning as an engine supplier in the 1980s, bought out BAR Racing in 2005.

Its move underscored deeper problems in the popular but expensive sport.

FIA president Max Mosley had already described F1's combined $1.6 billion spending in 2008 as "unsustainable," saying the teams were relying too heavily on the goodwill of rich individuals and corporate sponsors.

"The announcement of Honda's intended withdrawal from Formula One has confirmed the FIA's long-standing concern that the cost of competing in the World Championship is unsustainable," the FIA said in statement.

Ecclestone and Mosley are trying to push through cost-cutting measures, primarily a standardized engine to be supplied by Cosworth, and transmission from Xtrac and Ricardo from 2010.

"The average guy in the street doesn't care how many cylinders the car has, doesn't know, or what the capacity of the engine is, doesn't care," Ecclestone said. "We are in the business of entertainment and we should be building race cars to race."

Jimmie Johnson coolly entered an Irish bar jammed with NASCAR fans and promptly ordered a round of beer for everyone.

Pint glass raised, he toasted the rowdy New York crowd.

And why not?

His third consecutive NASCAR championship this season tied Cale Yarborough's 30-year-old record, and the laid-back but focused Californian doesn't appear ready to slow down anytime soon.

"Yes, I want to win a fourth," Johnson said. "Right now, I'm a part of history, I'd love to make history.

"Not pulling the Babe Ruth and pointing over to the outfield and saying I'm going to hit it over here, but hell yeah, I want to win a fourth. We'll see."

His festive mood is part of the territory during NASCAR's weeklong celebration to the champion, which wrapped up with last night's season-ending awards ceremony at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel.