You may have read stories in recent days of Cosworth being for sale; of Ford and Mini pulling out of the World Rally Championship; of Lola closing down and Porsche saying they are not coming in to Formula 1. Lotus is on the ropes and is now little more than a brand in search of a purpose.

This is all happening in the space of a few sorry days. This is not day-to-day Internet waffle. This is serious stuff. Lola and Cosworth, and the long gone March Engineering, were the key players in creating the British Motorsport cluster of which the UK likes to boast.

These were companies that trained great designers such as Patrick Head, John Barnard and formed the generations that built the great cluster. The world of F1 lives in its own bizarre little bubble, quibbling over whether or not there should be a budge cap that will make the businesses profitable and relevant, while the industry they represent is falling apart around them.

Perhaps the F1 world can go on as it is, with a few big teams and a bunch of also-rans, but I fear that the whirlwind that has clobbered the rest of the industry will eventually bite F1 as well, it is already like. Wolf nipping at the heels of the weakest members of the herd.

It is bonkers to go on spending willy-nilly on things that have no value in the real world. It is bonkers that half the money that is generated by the sport disappears into the pockets of financiers who would not know a Minardi from a McLaren. It is bonkers that the car manufacturers do not want to get involved in the new engine formula in 2014, when it would provide exactly the technology they are researching.

F1 needs to be brutally honest and ask itself why this has happened and what can be done, not only to make sure that F1 survives as it is, but also that the industry that grew around it – and that feeds it – does not disappear while everyone is busy gazing at their own fundaments.