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Little guys make way for large corporates

Today's Chinese Grand Prix marks the end of the 2005 season and will also be the last outing for some of the colourful characters and perennial underdogs who have added greatly to the sport.

A little bit of the romance of Formula One will ebb away as the sport bids a fond farewell to battling independents like Jordan, Sauber and Minardi, led by larger-than-life characters such as Eddie Jordan and Peter Sauber.

While the changes will even out the sometimes yawning gaps between the big and small teams, it's a sad day for the little guy and a sign of the increasingly corporate nature of the sport.

Eddie Jordan, one of grand prix's best-loved and most distinctive figures, is not even at Shanghai this year. The Irishman sold his team to the Russian-born Canadian tycoon Alex Shnaider 10 months ago and next year the team will race as Midland.

Another man who had come to personify the independent spirit, Peter Sauber, retires this year and BMW have bought the team that bore his name.

Earlier this month, Paul Stoddart sold his long-term strugglers Minardi to the Red Bull group, owned by the Austrian magnate Dietrich Mateschit.

Red Bull, who bought Jaguar last year, now has two teams.

BAR are being rebranded as Honda, ending the association with British American Tobacco. The days of tobacco sponsorship are fading and the renaming reflects that.

And it's not just personnel changes, the engines are changing, too, as the angry hornet of the V10 engine gives way to new 2.4-litre V8 units.

The smaller engine has been brought in to cut speeds and promote safety.

'This will be our last race with the Toyota V10 engine and we are already looking forward to our winter test programme with their new V8. Whilst we will probably miss the sound and performance of the V10, for a while at least, it will be a great technical challenge for the team to get the most out of the new package in preparation for 2006,' said Dominic Harlow, Jordan's chief race and test engineer.

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