I'm almost certain that Formula One as we know it is finished.

The shock announcement Thursday, on the eve of the Singapore Grand Prix, that international banking giant ING no longer wanted anything whatsoever to do with the Renault F1 team illustrates, like nothing else could, how the actions of team manager Flavio Briatore, Pat Symonds and Nelson Piquet Jr. have put the whole sport in jeopardy.

The "fixing" of last year's Singapore GP hasn't just given F1 a black eye. It has handed it a setback from which it may never recover.

In the eyes of the corporate world, F1's name is now mud.

ING's announcement followed by hours the notification by Spanish insurance company Mutua Madrilena that it also was ending its Renault sponsorship deal.

I fear this may only be the tip of the iceberg.

ING had served notice midway through the season that, because of the recession, it would end its deal with Renault at year's end.

That it would change its mind and notify Renault within hours of the cars taking to the track this weekend in Singapore that it immediately had to remove any and all decals and signage from uniforms, race cars, helmets, transporters, hospitality areas and whatever else that said "ING Renault Formula 1" shows how deeply the hurt and anger have cut.

Renault, which was banned from the sport for two years by the FIA but had the sentence suspended, initially said it would continue in the sport.

Now, without two of its major sponsors, I'm not so sure.

And how many sponsors of how many other teams may follow?

And if Renault leaves the sport (the possibility of this happening is increasing by the minute), how far behind is Toyota? Honda and BMW are already gone and, without the manufacturers, F1 as we know it will pretty much whither and die.

While Piquet and Symonds were fools to go along with the scheme (for Piquet to deliberately crash his car in order to help his teammate, Fernando Alonso, win last year's Singapore GP), the fault all lies with one man: Briatore.

In his years in F1, he's had his hand in just about every nook and cranny of top-level motorsport. It's made him very rich and very famous. He must also have thought it made him bullet-proof.

A marketing genius who built the small, little-known Italian family clothing firm Benetton into an international force in the 1980s (he advertised clothes by running billboard and magazine ads featuring men and women not wearing any), Briatore went on to manage the Benetton (née Toleman) F1 team.

With Michael Schumacher driving, the team won two world championships and a manufacturer's championship in the mid-1990s.

A wheeler-dealer, Briatore purchased the defunct Ligier team about that time and made money when he flipped it to Tom Walkinshaw. He did the same buy-sell thing with Minardi.

Briatore's first contact with Renault came in 1994-'95 when he contracted with the French company to provide engines for the Benetton team, which previously had been powered by Ford.

After he was fired by Benetton in 1997 (there was no reason; the family's youngest son, Rocco Benetton, just wanted to be the boss), Briatore spent the next three years running a Renault subsidiary that supplied older engines (Supertec, Mechachrome) to lesser-financed F1 teams like Williams and Arrows.

In 2001, Renault purchased the Benetton team and installed Briatore as team principal. He took immediate pleasure in giving Rocco Benetton the boot.

Following the 2001 season, Renault rebranded the team Renault F1 and left Briatore to run things. It was around this time, I suspect, that Renault stopped paying attention. Otherwise, I don't think Briatore could have gotten away with what came next if the parent company had been sufficiently engaged.

The "what came next" is that Briatore not only managed the team but he was the personal manager of many of the drivers who drove for it and other F1 outfits.

Picture this:

Team manager Briatore says to Driver A, "We here at Renault F1 will pay you $4 million to drive for us this season."

"That's very nice," says Driver A. "Do you think it's enough?"

Personal manager Briatore: "It's more than enough. Remember, I am your manager and I get 25 per cent. You will be satisfied with your $3 million and if I, as team manager, hear one peep out of you, I will either fire you for insubordination or make you drive for Force India.

"Oh, and there's one more thing: I might ask you sometime to crash on purpose …"

(I just made that last bit up – but you get the picture. )

He managed Fernando Alonso in his youth, farmed him out to Minardi and then, when he thought he was ready, fired Jenson Button to make room for Alonso at Renault.

He's also managed, at one time or another, Heikki Kovalainen, Jarno Trulli and Mark Webber – all while he was team principal of Renault.

(Can you imagine an NHL general manager being the personal manager of a player or players on his or any other team? This is what went on in F1 for years.)

But I'm a romantic and I have to admit that Briatore's sleight-of-hand fascinated me – as did his relationship with beautiful women.

He walked around for years with supermodel Naomi Campbell on his arm.

He fathered a daughter with supermodel Heidi Klum.

He's currently married to Wonderbra model Elisabetta Gregoraci, who's 28. Briatore is 59.

They say money and power attract and it sure is the proof of the pudding in Briatore's case.

I recall reading magazine articles about this man: his skill in the kitchen, his yachts, his dates, his townhouses and condo/apartments in the great cities of the world, his tourist resorts, his restaurants and his night clubs.

In short, he was my kind of guy.

At the 1996 Grand Prix of Canada, I met him in the paddock, face-to-face, for the very first time. He was chubby, unkempt, slovenly, he needed a shave and when he talked, he grunted.

I was terribly disappointed.

But then it hit me: It was classic marketing.

It was a product that when you got it, you found out it wasn't nearly all it was cracked up to be.

Just like Formula One has become.