No quattro, No Audi: German Carmaker Not Coming to F1

Rumors had been flying left and right that one of Volkswagen Group's main divisions would make a debut in Formula 1.Most would expect the company involved to be either Das Auto themselves or Audi, but the four ring brand has no interest in this kind of motorsport.

Audi Motorsport bosshad a talk with Car Magazine and he couldn’t have been more clear if he wrote it in blood. “There’s a very good reason why we are not in F1,” said Wolfgang Ullrich. “There’s no relevance to the road. Audi has always been engaged in motorsport that’s relevant to our customers such as rallying and touring cars, which brought quattro, FSI and TFSI to our road cars. This is why in 1999 we decided against F1. Instead we decided to take on the greatest race in the world. We went for Le Mans.”

Ullrich is convinced that endurance racing is a better testbed than F1: “Let me show you how – at Le Mans, one of our cars will cover 325 miles more than an F1 car will cover in an entire season, our average speed including pits stops will be 20mph higher than an F1 car and we will use 42% less fuel. You cannot argue with those figures.”

We have to agree with the Ingolstadt automaker to some extend, as lightweight construction, downsized engines and greater economy translate directly into sales for a company that is big on TDI and saving you money at the pump, while F1 only translates into brand image in the short term. Just look at how much press Audi’s prototype is getting for stuff like LED technology. Could it do that in F1?