Mercedes-Benz Forum banner

Audi into F1 ?

4K views 8 replies 3 participants last post by  Teutone 
#1 ·
#2 ·
I saw that they have had some talks with Toro Rosso.

It would be great for the sport to get another car maker in the paddock.

Did you here that Renault may be itching to get back in the sport? Red Bull may the next one after Toro Rosso to change hands.
 
#3 ·
Insiders believe a Toro Rosso to Renault works team is more likely.
When Sauber was the BMW works team, they did well without having a base in the U.K.'s motor racing valley, but i think any team would be well advised to have a base there.
I think even Ferrari. It certainly hasn't hurt Mercedes.
Any of the VW sisters could likely come up with a good engine based on the current F1 formula.
I can remember Porsche engines in F1, they were powerful, but not reliable.
Auto Union certainly had the F1 racing pedigree, before Porsche did.

That a driver like the Hulk can't find sponsorship in Germany is pretty sad imo.
 
#5 ·
Those are great points. Audi bought Ducati and at the first race in Qatar they were flying at the front. Rossi won, but the Ducati was the strongest I have seen it years.

I am still not dispatching that Audi will be in F1. It just a matter of which team they buy so they have a facility to start with. We know Haas will be and has now purchased what was the Caterham facility in England. Also Haas is aligned with Ferrari for engines and other support.

Apple is cool and does cost more. However being in the publishing biz like I am I have no problem paying for a computer that works for 7-10 years. If was on Winderz I would have had to replace high end workstations every 2-4 years so in my case the Apple machines save me money.

I love what Boeing is doing and have friends that work at both the WA and KS plant.

What if Apple, Boeing, MS and HP all got together and built an F1 team?
I know it is just a dream, but the "what if" factor is off the charts. All of that brain trust focused on on singular project would be something that could astound and rise to the top in a very short time. Not far from Cupertino are wind tunnels all around the Santa Clara region of the south bay and they all still work even if they being leased out to other companies for testing. Our tax dollars paid them from NASA and DOD research and they are being used by either agency.

Again I am dreaming, but what if..............???
 
#6 · (Edited)
Those four would be strong, that was my thinking, each with a key skill set
Use Ford as the mfg and Haas for operations
Revenue sharing has really eased the pain and with the combined advertising budget of those five or six a drop in the bucket
Get a bank and telecom and you have an sd budget over 10 bil
With tv revenue 1% would fund a team

The younger generation in the US is more familier with F1 and the 'glam' and 'tech' side of it
A better target market than 10 years sgo
And not into NASCAR
 
#7 ·
I think we are both on the same page that F1 has to change regardless of what King Bernie tries to do. If the teams bow out of the Concord agreement then F1 as we know it is gone and the heavy hitters in the current F1 scheme have more than enough money to start their own series.

I have been watching NASCAR earnings and fan attendance for many years. They are way down again for third straight season. If it was not for TV money they would be in a very bad way.
There are empty seats at Daytona, Talledega, and even the legend of Bristol. So if NASCAR is already losing attendance what is to say that F1 can not lose it also unless they get much more fan friendly??
The next couple of years in both sanctioned bodies will really see how the bullet hits the bone.
Meanwhile sport car racing is gaining a lot of ground both with fans at the track and TV money. Sadly the United Tudor series is owned by the France family from NASCAR. Hopefully they will see the positive of that and give all the fans what they really want. Not just almost spec full body racing Cup cars turning left for 34 races a year unless they are at Sonoma or the Glen.
 
#8 · (Edited)
Bernies influence has waned since the actual owners have gotten more involved
A good thing
They know to make it work the mfgs must be motivated, hence better revenue sharing, some teams are actually profitable

Rather than prop the grid up with barely functional team entice mfgs with $$$
There's plenty to go around
imo they need to relax the formula a bit to give the mfgs an incentive to innovate

The fees to host a race need to be lowered
If indy could not make $$$ that is crazy
First year I was there must have been 250k !!

Indy never announces attendance figures, but the most conservative estimate last Sunday was 225,000, more than doubling the attendance for the Grand Prix of Italy at storied Monza two weeks earlier. And considering the infield crowd at Indy, attendance likely was closer to 250,000--all this though the Speedway refused to open 100,000 of its 300,000 permanent seats because the view of the new road circuit would have been so poor.
 
#9 ·
Ferdinand Piech has to be one of the great managers / engineers of the car industry.
He steered Volkswagen into a World leadership role.
A friend who is involved in VW advertising (he is the guy who wraps up prototypes in containers, ships them to locations all over the World, to shoot the stills and short ad films we see later on TV and in print media. He once visited me in L.A. showing up for 5 days ea with a different proto type). Anyhow, he told me that to this day, 77 year old Piech will have a works driver test every new car with him in the passenger seat, and that his advice is usually right on the money.
Some may not know that Piech is Ferdinant Porsche's grandson, owns a considerable percentage of Porsche since childhood, and never had to work a day in his life had he chosen to do so. After his engineering degree, he started working at Porsche and was involved in the development of the legendary 906/7 race cars.
When a new company statute didn't allow any Porsche family member in the management of the company, he left for Audi. There, he was the man responsible for the Audi Quattro and the Rallying programs and championships, Audi made its name with.
Engineering tour de force Bugatti Veyron would have been unlikely without Piech at the helm.
It felt like his 'try to top that' to the super car manufacturers of the World.
He may have relinquished the throne in favor of a chosen successor, but the 77 year old Chairman of the supervisory board of the VW group is still the grey eminence behind the throne.
The man with racing and gasoline in his blood has come full circle.
We'll likely see a VW group marque in formula 1, as engine supplier and growing into a works team perhaps.
To keep two VW group owned racing marques, Porsche and Audi competing against each other in the same category makes no sense. A doubling of Audi's racing budget x 2 would equal a mid field F1 teams budget.
Not to forget, they own Lamborghini as well....
Just my 10 Pfennig.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top