When McLaren announced they would be teaming up with Honda in mid-2013, it brought back memories of their glory days together in the late 1980s, early 90s.
2018 was meant to see the start of Williams' revival in Formula 1 after several years of falling down the order.
The arrival of Paddy Lowe in 2017 was seen as the catalyst which would see the Grove-based team at least challenge the front of the midfield if not resurrect the giddy heights of fighting with Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull in 2015.
To do that, the Briton went aggressive with a radical design which stepped away from the more streamlined cars of the past but instead, what emerged was a flawed concept which left the historic squad floundering at the back of the grid.
At many of the races this year, the FW41 chassis was actually slower than its predecessor in qualifying with the scale of the problems no clearer shown than at Silverstone where a rear wing update designed to address some of the aerodynamic problems, actually stalled sending both drivers spinning off the track when they pushed.
It was a nightmare Saturday afternoon for Williams at Silverstone ?#BritishGP ?? #F1 pic.twitter.com/yLZrtPDdgY
— Formula 1 (@F1) July 7, 2018
Things were a little better towards the end of the season, but still, Williams found themselves unable to move up the grid and come the chequered flag in Abu Dhabi just seven points had been collected in 21 races, the third lowest total in their history.
Many were quick to blame their inexperienced line-up of Lance Stroll and Sergey Sirotkin for being a key part of the problem.
Stroll, in particular, continues to be plastered with a reputation as nothing more than a pay driver only in F1 because of his daddy's millions, while Sirotkin never really got the chance to show his skill, only inheriting his sole point of the season after Romain Grosjean was excluded at Monza.
Of course, their lack of knowledge likely didn't help but this was an unsalvagable season for Williams which wouldn't have been any better if Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel had been in the car.
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Could it be a one season blip that sees the British outfit come back strong in 2019? One answer is possibly, but the most likely outcome is no, and there's a multitude of reasons why.
The first is the apparent lack of leadership from those at the top, Lowe will no doubt all he can but deputy boss Claire Williams doesn't seem to offer much in the way in solutions, instead, only words on how terrible it all is.
Rob Smedley has moved on to spend time with his family and Robert Kubica has already warned finding strong replacements for those that have departed is easier said than done.
Then there is the 2019 line-up, the Polish driver steps up from his reserve role this year with F2 champion George Russell alongside.
On paper, that could be a strong pairing but there is still lingering concerns over if Kubica is as good as he was in 2010 and that's before you consider the rust after eight years away from single-seater racing.
As for Russell, he is certainly ready to make the jump but switching from a top team in F2, and indeed F1 with his link to Mercedes, to racing down the field with Williams will also take some adjusting.
Then there's the main reason, finances and an apparent unwillingness to adapt to today's F1 environment.
There are serious long-term doubts over Williams, who have already indicated as such by claiming a budget cap is key to the survival of the team.
Title sponsor Martini has gone as have the various commercial deals that Lance Stroll brought and now help the re-named Racing Point F1 team.
Some revenue has come back thanks to Kubica but with prize money from Liberty Media also falling Williams simply don't have the financial clout to challenge many of the midfield teams on the grid.
Allied to that is a desire to remain fully independent and not seek the same manufacturer support as teams like Haas, Sauber and Toro Rosso have.
While honourable to the great history of the team, it only exacerbates the financial strain even further and risks the current structural problems hampering performance again in the future.
Williams undoubtedly face some very tough decisions going forward, but without major changes in their own mentality, or some luck with new regulations, the light in the tunnel for the future remains very dim.
For Fernando Alonso, hopes were high heading into 2018 that after three years of frustration with Honda, finally, McLaren would be back on the right track.
With a much more trusted engine in Renault powering the MCL33, he made the big prediction that the British team would be back where it belonged, fighting towards the front of the grid.
It didn't happen. From the first day of pre-season testing, when the left-rear wheel came loose rounding Barcelona's final corner, it quickly became clear this would be another year of disappointment.
Following the first-day crash, McLaren then struggled with overheating issues related to their new power unit which would set back their development before it had really even started and from there it got steadily worse.
There were highlights, Alonso held off Max Verstappen to claim fifth in Australia and would actually finish inside the top eight in the first five races.
After that, however, he would score only have four points results in the following 16 Grands Prix, all of which led to his decision during the summer that now was the time to move on from Formula 1.
It was an acknowledgement that, despite his near misses at Ferrari and the failure of McLaren's attempted renaissance with Honda, the goal of securing a third world championship was no longer possible.
The promise of improvements had kept the double world champion on the grid in recent years even if Fernando's focus had started to shift as he took on new challenges elsewhere.
Then, after Zak Brown initiated an overhaul of the McLaren structure in July, the realisation set in that the team wouldn't be competing for wins or titles anytime soon and that meant F1 was no longer Alonso's place to be.
Certainly, there is still no doubts about his talent, his exploits in the WEC with Toyota team prove that, as did his decimation of Stoffel Vandoorne, a driver once tipped for stardom.
But now, there's only one goal in the 37-year-old's career, add the Indianapolis 500 to his resume and become the second man in history to win motorsport's Triple Crown.
That has become his way of vindicating himself as one of the greatest of all time, even if most already do recognise his position as one of the best.
Next year, he'll remain with McLaren and head back to the Brickyard to try and achieve that goal, and F1 will no doubt watch on as one of their most valuable assets for nearly two decades shows them what they're missing.
There also does remain talk of a future come back in 2020, but examples of a driver returning a few years after intentionally retiring are pretty rare.
Add to that there's no real sign that much will alter in F1 over the next few years to attract Alonso back.
Sure there'll be a few rule changes which may appease some of his criticisms of the sport today, but that doesn't change the fact that McLaren won't be catching the top teams at least before the middle of the next decade.
The top teams have also already long looked past hiring Fernando as the next generation of stars like Charles Leclerc, Max Verstappen, Esteban Ocon, Lando Norris to name a few, step up to the plate.
So while Fernando Alonso will no doubt be missed as a driver in F1, even if he'll likely still be around the paddock at several races with his experience and know-how very helpful to McLaren.
His departure should be seen more as recognition from a bonafide great of his generation that his time at the top had come to an end rather than a failure of the sport to accommodate him.
So nearly a week has passed since the news that shook the Formula 1 world, Daniel Ricciardo is to leave Red Bull and drive for Renault in 2019.
A driver from one of the sport's exclusive top three elite is taking a step back to race for a French manufacturer desperate to rekindle their glory days.
Arguments have been made for and against, yet over the past six days, for this writer at least, I have struggled to wonder what it actually all means for his future.
The years of frustration at Red Bull have been arduous, arriving just as their spell on top came to an end in 2014 and being forced to go year after year with the team close but not close enough.
That's the first reason why calling time after five seasons made sense, as much as the squad at Milton Keynes try, they simply can't get on the level of Mercedes and Ferrari and next season, with Honda, that won't change.
The reason why though was simple, the engine. This year's RB14 is more than a match for what came out of Maranello and Brackley, yet the Renault power unit simply isn't up to the task both on performance and reliability.
And that's why a move to their works teams seems like such a risk, sure the Enstone-based outfit has made great strides to now sit as the lead midfield team, but even that position is under risk because their engine can't compete with their rivals.
The Ferrari-powered Haas is quicker as is Sauber's Charles Leclerc most of the time. Force India and Williams, the Mercedes customers, would be in a similar position too but a mixture of financial problems and a flawed car design has allowed Renault to be in front at the majority of races.
The gap to the front also remains huge, at Hockenheim, one of the more conventional circuits, Nico Hulkenberg was 1.3 seconds off pole position on a layout where the fastest time was a 1m11.2s.
On a longer, more power hungry track at Silverstone, no Renault made Q3 and the gap to pole was 2.1 seconds, an age in F1 terms.
That is the scale of the challenge that faces Ricciardo, and despite him comparing it to Lewis Hamilton's move to Mercedes in 2013, achieving a similar rise now is almost impossible, particularly as Renault don't have the resources or the pending change in regulations that their German rival did.
For all that though, he was right to leave Red Bull because, if we're honest, none of the top three teams really wanted him.
Here he was, a potential future world champion out of contract at the end of the year yet Mercedes and Ferrari, who both had seats available, did nothing.
Why? Because they knew signing the 'Honey Badger' would upset their prized possessions, Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel. On his day, Ricciardo is more than capable of beating them both and has already done so in the case of the current Ferrari No.1.
It is remarkable that in sport, a team is happy to settle for something less than the best possible line-up yet that is just the rather screwed up mess that F1 is.
Then there was another obvious elephant in the room as to why the charismatic 29-year-old couldn't stay where he was, their own golden boy Max Verstappen.
Red Bull can say all they want about no team orders or favouritism and they are right to an extent, but that still doesn't detract from the fact that the Dutchman is the man they have selected as their future torchbearer.
His incident-ridden start to 2018 was proof why they can't go all in just yet, but now that Max does seem to have mellowed he will certainly be their top priority going forward.
That mentality was already encroaching on Ricciardo's position in the team and with the writing on the wall, he was right to escape from that shadow before it started to impact his own career.
Going forward, Renault do have the potential to be a front-running team and there is the reassurance that this move could well only be a two-year trial, with the grid likely to look very different in 2021 as opportunities at Mercedes, Ferrari and maybe even Red Bull will be back on the table.
New rules could well allow other teams to finally catch up too, potentially making that the most likely opportunity for the French manufacturer to once again become genuine contenders for wins and championships.
In the meantime, Ricciardo will likely need Fernando Alonso-style levels of patience and commitment before success returns his way, and hope that Honda doesn't start producing a rocket ship.
