Formula 1 racing is the most expensive sport in the world. Year after year, teams spend tens of millions of dollars in research and development to push the boundaries of technology in order to find those precious milliseconds that could mean the difference between winning and losing. Not to mention the logistics of bringing the whole circus to 20 races in different countries takes a huge chunk out of a Formula One team's annual budget.

This leads us to a question, as a team owner, wouldn't it be a monumental waste to invest huge amounts of money in a car only for it to be deemed unable to race? A lot of interesting Formula One tales have led to numerous cars being built that did not make it to a Grand Prix grid for various reasons.

10 McLaren MP4/18

McLaren usually had one of the fastest cars on the grid, but they were terribly unreliable during the early 2000s. They had a dismal season in 2002 and were hell-bent to close the gap to Ferrari in 2003 when Adrian Newey designed the McLaren MP4/18.

Its radical aerodynamic solutions and tight packaging made it look like a Ferrari-beater, but ultimately it failed the FIA crash tests and its V10 engine had cooling problems due to the tight bodywork. Furthermore, the old MP4/17D was competing for the World Championship until the last race in Suzuka, which further hampered the unproven MP4/18's chances of making it into the grid.

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9 Toyota TF110

Toyota's Formula 1 spell was a case of wrong timing. They arrived at the height of Ferrari's domination of the sport, and right when F1 regained its unpredictability, they pulled out due to economic reasons. Their unraced 2010 challenger, the TF110, could have been the car that took them to the top.

Toyota quit F1 at the 11th hour after two 2010 chassis had already been built. The TF110 featured many radical aerodynamic solutions similar to the title-winning Red Bull F1 car that year, including the diffuser. Many people in the sport believed it could have given Toyota their much-awaited race win, and most probably the championship. Unfortunately, it wasn't meant to be.

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8 Williams FW07D

It's highly unusual to see Formula One cars today with six wheels. But back in the 70s, Tyrrell actually raced a six-wheeled F1 car called the P34, which had two small additional wheels in the front. Williams saw that solution could work and applied it to their FW07D.

Unlike the P34, the Grove-based team added additional wheels at the back to provide more traction in corner exits. It looked promising as it set competitive lap times during testing, but before it even got to the grid, FIA ultimately banned six-wheeled F1 cars, and the potential of the car was never realized.

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7 Lola-Ford T97/30

Originally meant to compete in the 1998 championship, Lola's T97/30 was rushed into the grid for the 1997 championship due to their title sponsor MasterCard's eagerness to enter the sport. As the saying goes, if you fail to prepare, then prepare to fail.

The hastily built Lola chassis had a lot of drag without producing the downforce needed, and its old Ford Zetec V8 engine lacked the straight-line speed against their V10 engined rivals. As a result, they were 11.6 and 12.7 seconds off the pace and did not make the 107% rule in qualifying, banning them from participating in the race.

6 DAMS GD-01

The Driot-Arnoux Motor Sport team or DAMS, had considerable amounts of success in the junior categories of open-wheel racing, especially in Formula 3000 where they won the 1990, 1993, and 1994 championships.

Formula One, however, is a completely different story, as the DAMS GD-01 was never raced due to the team struggling to acquire the needed financial backing to enter the 1996 championship. Further difficulties in 1997 and the car's obsolete design prompted the DAMS team to abandon the project altogether.

5 Honda RC100

Honda has enjoyed a lot of success as an engine supplier in Formula One in different decades. They entered F1 as a full works team back in the 1960s and attempted to return by building their own chassis in the 1990s.

Their first attempt came in the form of the Honda RC100, which was built by engineers from the Tochigi plant that houses Honda's R&D teams. It was only built for Honda engineers to study how a Formula One chassis works, and there were really no plans to race the prototype.

4 Dome F105

Japanese motorsport constructor Dome attempted to enter Formula One for the 1997 season. On paper, the project looked promising, as they had Mugen-Honda as an engine supplier, Xtrac gearbox, wheels by Rays engineering, and push-rod dampers by Showa — all respected brands in the automotive aftermarket and the world of racing.

However, it was more than seven seconds slower than the pace-setting Williams of Jacques Villeneuve in post-season testing at Suzuka, and further plans to enter the car were hampered due to the lack of funding and sponsorship.

3 Lola-Ford T95/30

Lola's ill-fated attempt to enter Formula One was already looming during its conception. The Lola-Ford T95/30 was only built in order to attract major sponsors and provide funding for the team, but the car simply wasn't up to the task of impressing anyone.

With an unusual design, especially with the lack of airbox, the old V8 engine of the T95/30 was already down on power compared to its rivals, and its obsolete design meant it could not be raced for the 1995 season.

2 Toyota TF101

As a way for Toyota to prepare for full assault as a works team in the 2002 Formula One season, the Japanese manufacturer built a prototype a year before it was supposed to compete in order to gain valuable data and get their feet wet with the Toyota TF101.

Driven by Allan McNish and Mika Salo and featuring a livery design similar to the sports car projects of Toyota in the 90s, the TF101 took on an intensive testing program on the Paul Ricard circuit, where both drivers completed over 3,000 laps. Still, it was not meant to be, and it never entered a single race.

1 Honda RA099

It is another classic case of what might have been with our last car in the list that never made it to a Formula One grid. Honda was ready to make a full-scale assault back in 1999 when they built the Honda RA099, a prototype led by Harvey Postlethwaite, a legendary Formula One designer.

In its largely conservative bodywork, the car in Jos Verstappen's hands was already putting in midfield lap times and reliability was top-notch thanks to the proven Mugen-Honda engine behind it. Sadly though, Harvey Postlethwaite suffered a fatal heart attack during testing, leading Honda to lose interest in the project and abandon it altogether.