Volkswagen CEO confirms Porsche and Audi Will Join F1

All that Diess decided to share at the transmission was that Porsche’s plans are a bit more concrete than those with Audi. Thankfully, Reuters had a bit more information to share about these ideas.

According to the news service, Audi would be ready to put €500 million ($526,25 million at the current exchange rate) at McLaren. It is not clear if Audi would then turn the iconic F1 team into a team Audi (like Aston Martin did with Racing Point) or if it would just supply the team with engines. We suspect Audi would get money from McLaren and not the other way around if that was the case.

Regarding Porsche, Reuters heard that Porsche was planning to have a long-term partnership with Red Bull. In both cases, the German brands would join F1 by 2026, which is not as fast as fans would like to see that happening.

Rumors that Porsche is planning to go public with an IPO (Initial Public Offering) – as Ferrari did in 2015 – are growing every day. With those plans to sell shares on the table, joining F1 could be a genius move or something terrible, depending on the results. Making an engine that will not be robust enough and often brake in races would be a shame, for example.

That said, the reason for Porsche to join F1 at this point is a mystery: it would have a successful IPO regardless of that. We just know that the livery would be amazing, as the renderings created by Guilherme R. Borges demonstrate in our gallery and on Racedepartment, where he first published them.

Audi buying the McLaren team would bring similar questions, especially considering that McLaren has its own passenger car division. Killing the name McLaren would also make some fans resent Audi. After all, it could make its own team. Right now, what we do know is that it will happen. The “how” has plenty of time to be answered if 2026 is an accurate deadline for that.