Is Williams trying to do a Brawn GP and sell the team to a manufacturer? Well, according to Autocar, which quotes German publication Bild, boss Frank Williams is dangling his F1 team in front of the Volkswagen Group, which is expected to enter the pinnacle of motor racing from 2013. Williams used to partner BMW before Munich bought into Sauber and currently uses Cosworth engines.
“We are stronger with a manufacturer than as a private team,” Williams told Bild. “No question. And of course we have an affinity with Germany. I remember well, quite early on, we went to the races with VW buses – we sometimes even slept in them. German cars are great. With Mercedes, Brawn won the title last year, and with McLaren in the previous year. And now they are up there with their own team.”
According to Bild, Williams, who sold a 20% stake in his team to Austrian investor and race driver Toto Wolff late last year, could sell his remaining stake to VW if Wolfsburg decides to enter the sport. VW’s motorsport chief Kris Nissen is said to want F1 to improve its image, drive down costs and improve its stability before the group commits itself. He was also quoted before saying that VW will continue to concentrate on its successful Dakar Rally programme for at least two more years. VW is currently the team to beat in Dakar after winning back-to-back editions since the race moved to South America.
VW’s involvement in single seater racing is currently limited to Formula 3 racing. It supplies 2.0-litre four-cylinder engines to teams in the Formula 3 Euro Series, ATS Formula 3 Cup and the British Formula 3 Championship.
Danny Tan loves driving as much as he loves a certain herbal meat soup, and sweet engine music as much as drum beats. He has been in the auto industry since 2006, previously filling the pages of two motoring magazines before joining this website. Enjoys detailing the experience more than the technical details.
by right vw should be involved in F1….thy are expanding very fast , and moving higher into the luxury market mostly….bt then again , very few manufacturers trust f1 , every season got new rules….no consistency
oh my! Good news!
hopefully VW cars don't increase in price because of this decision. It looks like VW is repeating what toyota did some time ago.
maybe it's better for VW to concentrate more on it's road car division rather than F1 …
haha volkswagen golf GTI f1 version?
i tink a german company wont hav d toyota mentality so no wories if they ultimately decide to join F1…wud b intresting coz they basicaly own most of d car manufacturers n parts suppliers so geting resources together to run a season shudnt b tat hard..i kinda wish they do coz it wud be fun watching all major car makers batling it out..pity toyota tough!!..mismgmt of d team n funds led to their demise
F1 is still irrelevant to VW. Doesn't make sense for them to spend on creating an F1 engine programme or buy out existing expertise with and rebadging it VW like what most companies (ie Mercedes) did.
It would make more sense if there is some semblance to an existing engine programme within VW.
If F1 switched to say 2L 4cyl turbo, direct injected engines or diesel turbo engines, VW/Audi would jump into it right away.
If you look at Le Mans Audi(VW)'s involvement directly relates to the tech they offer in their road cars.
VW's entry could come under one of its other brands, though. Looking past the everyday TSI/TDI units, the Group has V8, V10, W12 and W16 powered road cars and perhaps there's a top secret team in there working on an F1-spec powerplant?
An F1 engine is very far removed from any road car engine programme that exists within a car manufacturer. Yes, heads and blocks could be sourced from the automakers foundry but it will have to be bespoke and not shared with anything in existence. Even the alloy spec would be different. So you can't take a V8 block meant for an VW/Audi road car and grind it down to F1 Spec.
It might actually be more logical to engage a foundry that is already supplying race spec parts.
That's why Renault F1 engines come from a dedicated plant in Southern France, nothing to do with Renault's road car engine manufacturing.
Mercedes collaborated with Ilmor Engineering to produce Indycar then F1 engines rebadged as Mercedes. They have since bought into that and morphed it into Mercedes High Performance Engines (HPE) business unit, based still in the UK. Even Merc did not try to create a programme from their own factory plant from scratch.
Does not make commercial $$$ sense.
Perhaps it could indeed come from their existing engine development unit related to racing ie. the Audi V12 now V10 TDI race engine used for Le Mans but I suspect those were derived from their production engine programme, as there are similarities. Audi has both road car versions of those engines.
Creating a 2.4L V8 revving to 18,000rpm may have to be started from fresh blueprint or the smarter way would be to buy an existing blueprint and evolve it. No one really builds from zero these days.
As a car manufacturer, they should just focus on bulding good car first before turning to F1 for promotion……….(Except P1 still produce CRAPS )
Even Proton can enter F1 ( a laughing stock of course) , so i see no reasons
why VW cant enter as Porsche maybe…..
Don't waste your time.
Current regulations make F1 a bore !!
BMW better
FIA's current rules does not encourage major manufacturers who want to make F1 relavant to their road cars. No diesel, no turbo, no active suspension, v8 only, non-ferrous engine materiel is not allowed and dumbed down engine management system. I think VW will find LeMans series more useful for their purpose.
hope they go into F1 via Audi…dream come thru for me, at least…
They would have a car that is the fastest on the straights but which is hopeless in the corners, and that would run out of fuel after 15 minutes.
Let's face it, there is no sense in any general manufacturer being involved in F1 – but that doesn't stop grown men having fantasies, which they might be able to fund with other people's money.
Forget F1, VW should focus on LeMans, WRC, GT, WTCC even Nascar etc etc. All these combined could still cost less than sustaining an F1 team.
Hey Danny, i wil be mentioning something besides VW involvement in F1, rather VW in malaysia. Are we going to get the Golf Sport here with the 1.4TSI engine? and I also came across the specs for the passat cc sold here in malaysia, which states the gearbox being a six speed DSG. However the rest of the world's 2.0 passat cc is paired with a six speed torque converter automatic, was our model specially specced by VW malaysia?
maybe a new W24(V12+V12)… just kidding…
"However the rest of the world’s 2.0 passat cc is paired with a six speed torque converter automatic, was our model specially specced by VW malaysia?"
Torque converter? Where do you have this information from?
VW doesn't offer any torque concerter automatics in combination with 2.0 engines….
BeemerFreak: Yes, the Twincharger Golf should be coming this year, although nothing is confirmed at the moment. The Passat CC 2.0 TSI with DSG you spotted should be the 2010 spec car that VGM is bringing in. The unit we reviewed recently came with the torque converter auto
Won't be surprise that VW will enter Lambo or audi into f1 instead of themselves.
For them to enter the Lambo brand would be akin to shooting themselves in the foot. It would be better for them to use Audi, maybe even VW.
Technically they could enter via Cosworth, ie rebadge the Cosworth engine or buy into Cosworth to have a hand in the tech process.
Video on Cosworth's return below:
http://www.crash.net/f1/video/157946/1/cosworth_o…
In fact Audi's petrol V10 used in Gallardo, R8 etc was built by Cosworth Technologies.
Not worth getting into F1 for manufacturers, too much politics. Better concentrate on WTCC and Le Mans
-Diablo
I beg your pardon, it is the Audi who took the down tuned 5.2L V10(520 BHP) engine from Lamboghini(560BHP). Your giving the direct opposite info. But what the heck, they are from the same company XD!
-Diablo
I beg your pardon, it is the Audi who took the down tuned 5.2L V10(520 BHP) engine from Lamboghini(560BHP). You are giving the direct opposite info. But what the heck, they are from the same company XD!
Yes, I know what you mean because the V10 first appeared in the Gallardo though regardless of which brand used it first, second, third etc.. the V10 was commissioned and bankrolled by Audi. Contrast that to the Lambo V12 which was a Lambo in-house design and only used in the Murcielago
It was originally built for the Gallardo as a 5.0L unit.
Cool, maybe with Mercedes and VW there will be pressure to open up the engine types again. maybe W4 Turbos!