London: McLaren expect their revenues to fall by more than a third as a result of the global economic crisis, according to the Formula One team’s boss and co-owner Ron Dennis.

“Our budgets come from the advertising budgets of the companies that support us, and inevitably advertising budgets get slashed or, at least are significantly trimmed in times of economic strife,” he told a British newspaper.

“We know we have to reduce our costs to cater for the inevitable downturn in income that is coming in 2010 and 2011,” he added in an interview that the paper said took place before Honda announced on Friday that they were pulling out of the sport.

“We predict that our turnover will drop from £280 million ($410.8 million) a year to as low as £175 million a year,” said Dennis.

McLaren are 40 per cent owned by Mercedes with 30 per cent in the hands of Bahrain’s state-owned Mumtalakat holding company and the remainder shared equally between Dennis and Saudi business partner Mansour Ojjeh.

Their main sponsors are telecoms giant Vodafone and Spanish bank Santander.

The team won their first Formula One title since 1999 this season, with Britain’s Lewis Hamilton becoming the sport’s youngest world champion at the age of 23.

McLaren are the second most successful Formula One team after Ferrari. (REUTERS)