F1 needs stability before VW consider competing

During 2015 there was a lot of paddock talk regarding a potential move into Formula One from the VW Group.

The rumours intensified as Red Bull Racing played out their engine saga with Renault.

It appeared that Red Bull Racing were looking for a new long-term partner and Helmut Marko wanted to see Audi enter the sport.

Audi have dominated Endurance Racing over the past decade with a number of Le Mans titles, their Hybrid Engine has proved to be the best and that technology could hypothetically transfer well into the world of v6 Turbo-Hybrid Formula One.

‘If we don’t have a competitive engine in the near future, then either Audi is coming or we are out,’ Marko told the BBC in May 2015.

Audi and the VW Group [which along with Audi and VW includes brands such as Porsche, Lamborghini, Bugatti and Seat] have in the past been against the notion of entering Formula One due to chairman Ferdinand Piech not holding a good personal relationship with Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone.

However 78-year-old Piech resigned from his position in April 2015.

At that time the new Audi chairman Rupert Stadler was throught to be pro Formula One, but an F1 entry was vetoed as recently as January 2015 by Piech.

But it seemed that the VW Group could be moving towards thoughts of Formula One, perhaps even a partnership or a takeover of Red Bull, only for the VW emissions scandal to break.

Since that point, VW’s priorities have obviously been the main business but whilst a move into Formula One has been put on hold, possibly indefinitely, the group’s motorsport boss Wolfgang Durheimer has also laid out reasons why the current landscape in Formula One is wrong for the German group.

‘Formula 1 is not on our agenda right now, The situation is not predictable enough to make the kind of investment required. Before you commit the kind of money needed you must see five years of rules stability,’ Durheimer told Autocar as quoted by the BBC.

‘There can’t be the possibility of rules changes, of more or less engine cylinders coming in, or the hybrid system changing away from technology you are developing on road cars, If you are a big business making a big investment you expect to have some influence on the set-up, with an assurance the present ownership will last. In F1, it seems the owners will not be there forever and that creates some instability.’