His reward for helping British American Racing achieve its best ever season - finishing runner-up to Ferrari - was to be dumped, following Honda's acquisition of a 45% stake in the Brackley outfit.

Less than two months later, whilst still considering his options, David Richards has been given 'royal recognition', with the awarding of the CBE, for services to motorsport.

The award isn't merely in recognition of Richards' work in F1 - first with Benetton and then BAR - but his work with Prodrive, the motorsport engineering company he founded in 1984.

The Oxfordshire based company, which employs 900 people, and has an annual turnover of £110m ($57.3m), is the world's largest independent motorsport company. Richards is also the driving force behind the WRC (World Rally Championship)

Meanwhile, as he considers his future, it's not just his CBE that Richards can comfort himself with. According to the latest edition of BusinessF1, the 52-year-old's compensation package, following the termination of his contract with BAR, is in the region of $15m (£7.8m) - though this is thought to include compensation for Prodrive freeing Nick Fry from his contract ands allowing him to join BAR as chief executive.

£7.8m will buy a lot of cigars, as David thinks about what he'll try his hand at next.