VW linked with F1 again

28/01/2012

A report in the German media claims that VW is looking to enter F1 as an engine supplier before buying into an F1 team.

Speaking to Wirtschafts Woche, Wolfgang Durheimer, head of Bentley, Bugatti and Motorsport within the VW Group, said that he will be presenting his concept to the board, a concept which includes entering F1.

"I will be presenting my concept to the board this year, with plans that not only include the motor sport series that we are at presently represented in," he said.

"If we considerer our planned sales in the American, Asian and Middle Eastern markets, then we are not properly represented in motor sport in these markets," he continued. "In my opinion we have to correct this."

Durheimer, who previously headed Porsche, which, following a brief flirtation with F1 in the early 60s which included a win for Dan Gurney in the 1962 French Grand Prix, and which subsequently enjoyed success in the 1980s with McLaren, securing three drivers and two constructors' titles with the Woking team, believes that "F1 has the most relevance and dominates motor sport in Europe and Asia".

While Wirtschafts Woche claims that its sources within VW suggest that the company's first move will be to enter F1 as an engine supplier, Durheimer's concept is understood to involve buying a major stake in a current team, Toro Rosso being the most likely candidate.

While F1 has been discussed within the company on many occasions, with continued speculation in recent years, the idea has been meet with resistance from Chairman Ferdinand Piech. It is not known whether he has changed his mind or why the plans could now come to fruition.

Durheimer's concept for the future of motorsport within the company also sees an expansion of its activities in the US. However, despite the prospect of two Grands Prix in America, he remains sceptical about the sport's future there. "F1 is irrelevant there," he said, "but they have Indy and NASCAR. We have to consider these series for our future concept."

Durheimer's comments come as Audi contests the Daytona 24 hrs, with several examples of the newly developed customer Audi R8 Grand-Am, although these have been entered by two private teams.

In March 2011, the head of technical development at Volkswagen, Ulrich Hackenberg, when asked about talk of the German company expanding its motorsport activities to include F1 said: "There is certainly one or the other person out there in the world that would wish for that, but we don't have that on the programme," he told Reuters.

"I should know what I am talking about," he added, "since it would come out of my budget."

Four months later, Duerheimer, said he envisaged VW entering F1 by 2018. "I could imagine involvement in Formula One in 2018, when the company is at the forefront of the industry," he told Auto Motor und Sport. "We have enough brands that could do that."