Toyota as an F1 team chose not to follow received opinion from the word go. They set up their base in Cologne, of all places, they took on the monumental task of building both chassis and engine and they spent a year testing instead of racing, opting to pay an $11 million fine for the privilege. The fact that their results since then have been, um, disappointing lends weight to the argument that, initially at least, they got it horribly wrong.

The team's test drivers during that development year were Mika Salo and Allan McNish, who were retained for the first year of racing but dropped at the end of the season, in a move that was probably another thing they got wrong and certainly won them no friends in this corner of the world, I can tell you.

The list of drivers they've since employed makes for dull reading: Cristiano da Matta, Olivier Panis, Ricardo Zonta, Ralf Schumacher, Timo Glock and Jarno Trulli, for whom we must admit to having a bit of a soft spot. Schumacher, in particular, is another thing the team got wrong, not least for deciding to pay him an astronomical retainer, despite all evidence that he really wasn't very good at all.

One thing the team did get right was to bring in Mike Gascoyne early in 2004 to lick their technical department into shape. On the other hand, their decision to drop him a couple of years later, just when his efforts were starting to bear fruit, baffled many of the more clear-thinking observers in the paddock.

There's also the tiny matter of an industrial espionage case brought against the team by Ferrari in 2004, after several people had commented on the striking similarity between Toyota's TF104 and the previous year's Ferrari. The case against Toyota seemed overwhelming but the FIA chose not to act, choosing instead to save their ire for the less clear-cut McLaren case in 2007.

Famously one of the best-funded teams on the grid, Toyota have yet to demonstrate that it is money well spent, not least to the top brass in Japan, who periodically issue deadlines to whoever the team principal happens to be that week. The team is still in F1 but never looks as if it will be in the long term.

Would anyone actually miss them though?

The FIA (or Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile to give it its full, inexplicably french, name) is an ominous association formed to represent motorists and motoring organisations. Its headquarters are at 8 Place de la Concorde, Paris (ring top bell), coincidentally just up the rue from one of the city's best bordellos.

The federation acts as the governing body for a number of motorsport series and championships, mostly in a venal or, if we're feeling charitable, incompetent manner. It should not be confused with the Fédération Internationale de l'Alcosport, which governs Drink-A-Long-A-Grand-Prix almost as badly.

Comprising 222 member organisations, the FIA can also boast a Senate, a Court of Appeal and a General Assembly and it wouldn't take a stretch of the imagination to see its activities as part of a sinister plan to get itself recognised as a sovereign state in its own right. It's not a million miles from how Hitler started, that's all we're saying.

Its decisions have at times left the FIA open to accusations of favouritism and manipulation and its credibility wasn't helped any by revelations that its married president, Max Mosley, was partial to sado-masochistic orgies involving more tarts than you can fit on one hand. Mosley, seeing no incompatibility between his behaviour and his position, failed to tender the resignation that many were keenly anticipating.

They claim to do a lot of work on road safety but we've never knowingly seen any of their campaigns.

Max Mosley is a qualified barrister, president of the FIA and likes his whores five at a time, thank you very much.

His father was Oswald Mosley, the former leader of the British Union of Fascists, his mother was Diana Mitford, of the renowned and, um, eccentric Mitford family, and his wife Jean is either the most understanding woman in the world or the owner of a bollock collection boasting two fresh exhibits.

Mosley spent part of his education in Germany, during which time he became fluent in the language, which comes in very handy at all those S&M parties. For a time he was also a member of the British Territorial Army and he still has the uniform, which comes in very handy at all those S&M parties.

He claims that his most rewarding work at the FIA is centred on road and race safety and during his tenure the FIA has introduced into all its championships the compulsory use of the HANS device, a neck brace that restricts head movement and which comes in very handy at all those S&M parties.

Mosley was the "M" in "March", an F1 team that had some success, and many now claim that he is the "F" in "FIA" and that he was almost certainly the "C" in "FOCA".