The telephone lines had been ringing red hot on the desks of the men with the power to hire and fire in Britain's Formula One teams long before Ross Brawn and Nick Fry got to their feet to deliver the bad news.

Word that Honda were pulling out of Formula One had spread like a bush fire through what they call the Silicon Valley of motor racing. The weather might not be Californian but the triangle of central England - with its points at Oxford, London and Northampton - is Britain's answer to the USA's technological hothouse. And Formula One stands at the apex of a motor racing industry that remains a world leader and employs an estimated 60,000 people in Britain.

Honda's factory at Brackley in Northamptonshire is glossy, opulent and packed with some of the best brains in motor racing. By late Thursday night, though, those brains were being exercised to find ways of securing new jobs quickly before Honda's Christmas deadline to sell the team.

The announcement by Brawn, the team principal, and Fry, the chief executive, was little more than a formality for many who knew what was coming. By then, engineers, top people in the marketing departments and support staff had already been calling other teams to discover whether they had a chance of finding alternative employment.

Brawn, brought in only last year on a salary thought to be about £4million, seems ready to see out the crisis and is playing a leading part in finding a buyer. But he is one of the most employable men in motor racing having been the technical genius behind Michael Schumacher's seven Formula One world titles, at Benetton and Ferrari. Even if Honda fold, Brawn is unlikely to be out of work for long.

But heading the dole queue could be Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello, Honda's drivers. The Brazilian is almost certainly headed for an unexpected retirement, but Button has been left high and dry because of his loyalty to Honda. In 2003, he joined what was then the BAR Honda team, before the Japanese carmaker bought out British American Tobacco's shares, and he committed his future to the team with another three-year contract only a few weeks ago.

This summer, Button had offers from four other teams after four years of desperate underachievement in a car way off the pace of Ferrari or McLaren Mercedes, with whom Lewis Hamilton won his maiden world championship last month. But he was convinced by Fry and Brawn to stay with the promise that 2009 would make him a winner again.

It is only ten days since Button was in Japan to meet Honda's top executives at the “Honda Thanksgiving Day”. Yesterday, the embarrassment clearly told among Honda's top executives as Takeo Fukui, the company's chief executive, apologised to Button during his announcement in Tokyo that Honda was quitting.

“It is a real shame and I feel deeply sorry for Jenson Button,” Fukui said. “I didn't speak to Jenson so I don't know his reaction.” The answer is both furious and devastated. This was a young driver who burst into Formula One with the same impact as Lewis Hamilton eight years ago, yet finds himself today with only one victory to his name and little chance of finding a seat at another team. A source close to the Briton said last night: “So much for loyalty.” At least Button will not be worried that he will have to join the Government's new mortgage help scheme with his £12million salary already banked.

But the 600 team members at Brackley may. They range from cleaners and canteen workers to executives and aerospace engineers on massive salaries that will be difficult to find outside the rarefied financial atmosphere of Formula One. Mechanics are highly trained engineers, used to working with the most sophisticated equipment. Jock Clear, Barrichello's chief engineer and the man who guides the driver through each race, has a degree in mechanical engineering from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh. His salary is not known but it is not unusual for chief engineers to earn up to £200,000 a year. Clear is the sort of man who could be cherry-picked by a rival team.

But many face an uncertain future as other teams contemplate cutbacks and job losses with sponsors examining whether Formula One is cost-

effective. Workers will have to be shed as Formula One feels the global financial crisis like any other industry, with the ripples spreading out to the dozens of firms who supply the teams.

This could be when Formula One's high-rollers discover that the credit crunch is going to bite even into their exotic lifestyles and mega-salaries.

Hitting the home market

5 Formula One manufacturers left in Britain if Honda goes

60,000 jobs dependent on motor racing

£1bn combined budgets of the seven Formula One teams in Britain this year

100,000 spectators at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone

£343m estimated spend on Formula One by sponsors

154m estimated viewers worldwide who watched Lewis Hamilton secure the world title in Brazil