Recent published accounts indicate that two of Britain's leading F1 teams - McLaren and Williams - both made a profit.

The Evening Standard recently revealed that McLaren - World Championship runners-up in 2005 - turned a loss of almost £15m into a profit of £2.7m in its most recent published accounts.

In the 14 months ending December 2004, the Woking outfit witnessed a £27.1m increase in turnover, compared to the previous year, bringing it up to £106.6m. Some of this increase is due to the fact that the company increased its accounting period from 12 to 14 months.

During this period the team - which also builds the Mercedes-Benz SLR - moved into its new £200m state-of-the-art facility, which meant it could dispose of machinery and leasehold assets totalling almost £15m.

Mercedes owns 40 percent of McLaren, while the remaining 60 percent is equally split between Ron Dennis, and Mansour Ojjeh's TAG group.

Meanwhile, the Evening Standard also revealed that WilliamsF1, which finished fifth in the 2005 Constructors' Championship, turned a £1m loss into a £743k profit, according to its most recent accounts, which run to the end of November 2004.

The Grove outfit - the last true independent team, owned by Frank Williams and Patrick Head - increased it turnover by £5m to £89m, thanks to a number of (relatively small) sponsorship deals, including Budweiser.

One of the biggest expenses of these most recent accounts was the £11m wage bill for (then) drivers, Ralf Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya, and a further £21m for other team wages..

Since BMW provided the engines, this figure - thought to be worth as much as £50m a year - is not included in turnover.

In 2006, WilliamsF1 will have to pay (Cosworth) for its engine supply, though to be in the region of £9m, while the team also has to deal with the loss of (sponsor) Hewlett-Packard, which is thought to have been paying £20m into the Grove outfit's coffers.

That said, ahead of a rumoured switch to Toyota power-plants in 2007, WilliamsF1 is rumoured to have increased the size of its deal with the Royal Bank of Scotland, and can also expect around £18m compensation from Jenson Button, who opted to renege on his contract for 2006 and remain with BAR (Honda).

In 2005, the driver wage bill was reduced considerably, while it is thought that Hewlett-Packard and BMW may be liable to pay the Grove team some form of compensation following the early conclusion of both partnerships