Anyone who's followed Formula 1 closely over the past three years will say this outcome was only a matter of time, but now, finally, after nearly three seasons of woeful underachievement, the second coming of the McLaren-Honda alliance has been dissolved.
Yesterday's news follows a series of frantic meetings between McLaren and Honda bosses during the recent Italian Grand Prix weekend, as McLaren served notice to Honda that it intended to walk away from the multi-year works engine partnership that began in earnest in 2015.
It wasn't meant to end this way. McLaren-Honda was meant to rule the world. "Domination", in the manner the previous incarnation of this alliance achieved in the late-1980s, is what Ron Dennis set as the target.