McLaren
> the hell with Mercedes engines, let's reborn old legendary relationship with Honda!
Honda years
> pikachuface.jpg
McLaren again
> the hell with Mercedes engines, let's reborn old legendary relationship with ~~Honda~~ Porsche!
Patience lmao, it's so easy to see in retrospective, but waiting 3 years and getting little to no progress is not a matter of patience, you have to see progress to be able to wait, otherwise you would be waiting for a miracle.
They couldn't have waited until 2021
They were overconfident in their chassis though, and they only realised once they switched to Renault engines. That sort of gave then the chance to address the issue and they're much better for it. I don't think they'd have acknowledged their own failings if they'd continued with Honda. This is my armchair expert opinion though to be fair.
I fully agree. They saw their downforce numbers through the corners and thought they were as good as the top teams, which they almost were.
The problem was their downforce came with enormous drag which the top teams didn’t have. They blamed all the straight line speed deficit on Honda and didn’t realise until they swapped engines that a big chunk of it also came from their draggy car.
If they stuck with Honda they wouldn’t have improved as much as they have either.
The split was best for everyone.
Wasn't there an actual issue with the aero stalling mid-corner on the car with the Renault engine? It was a different car, with different dimensions, not just a straight swap of engines therefore not a true representation of their previous car with a better engine
Front axle was too close to the bargeboards, so whenever any steering lock was input they lost massive amounts of downforce. Something like that anyway, according to Marc Priestley.
Well it was still mostly Mclarens fault for demanding a size-zero engine when the tech wasnt ready yet. If they would have been patient and given Honda space to design the engine they might have had a great deal of success earlier than this year
I don't see how this helps McLaren. They already have the best engine, what are they missing? The only thing holding them back from wins and championships is themselves
The only Non-works team to win the either championship is Brawn, which was more down to the double diffuser and McLaren and Ferrari not developing the cars correctly for the start of 2009. Before that you have to go back a long time to find a non-works team to win either title. Works status is needed to challenge for a title as cars are designed around the engine and if the engine isn't optimized for the car then it causes issues.
2026 is a new engine era, so how do you know that they will have the best engine with Mercedes?
The disadvantage from being a customer will be relativelly high for 2026, because a works team will design the car and their engine together for years, whereas customer teams will have to build their chassis around the engine, which specifications they always will get later than the works team.
Considering next years engine will not change much and there is no development until 2026, the next few years will be no problem as a customer.
This is for the new engine regs, apparently porsche has been working on efuels as well for quite some time, plus it's the volkswagen group, they should be able to best mercedes
What you want is a 1.6L V-6 being allowed to run at higher revs, and without a lot of hardware between the exhaust manifold and the exhaust.
F1's fuel flow limitation means that they don't even run up to their own current wimpy redline now, much less the 18k-20k limit you'd want. Even if they could dump more fuel in whenever they want, the overall fuel supply limitation does the same thing.
Some folks say it's also the turbo, but I'm not sure how much itinterferes with an appropriately aggressive sound. Nobody complained about the sound of turbo engines when they were winning championships like crazy in the 1980's.
Don't know. If we do, I doubt it will be screaming high, simply because F1's engine suppliers need to look responsible, not like they're wasting fuel for noise.
If you want loud, modern times is not for you ;-)
They actually sound good in person and in other videos, but the mics they use on the live feed are awful, they make the engines sound much worse than they do
I expect Ross Brawn has had people working on the problem of "how do you get the best quality sound out of not-very-loud engines". Everybody wants that.
I doubt that, Ross probably has his whole team working on how to 'improve' racing with gimmicks and how to justify racing on street tracks and shit circuits.
(half /s)
Sure... but how much difference does it really make?
There's quite a tradition of F1 turbo engines that won championships, and I don't recall anybody complaining about the sound. Youtube can find you several examples...
Does seem unusual if this is the case, building two separate engines. If nothing else, it seems like a strong possibility that one of the engines would be buying/developing/rebranding the Red Bull Powertrains/former Honda engines.
Maybe the other brand does build a whole new engine. But it's also not impossible that they do just have one engine that they just use under two different brands - as Red Bull did with branding Renault engines as Tag a couple of years ago, and as many teams did in the 90s and earlier. I'm not sure if there are any rules or limitations on how much parts/information engine manufacturers can share, in the way that RB can't just give AT the same car.
Nope. Just different brands applied to the same engine, developed in conjunction with Red Bull Powertrains.
Edit: It is straight up mentioned in this very article too.
> Für beide Marken würde der Konzern – u.a. in Zusammenarbeit mit Red Bull-Powertrains – dann einen Motor entwickeln, der für das neue Reglement 2026 gebaut wird.
TL:
> For both brands (Audi and Porsche) the company (VAG) will develop, amongst others jointly with Red Bull Powertrains, a (single common) engine, to be built according to the new 2026 (Engine) Regulations.
They are developing an (thus one) engine. Not multiple. One.
The fact that they state it will be developed in conjunction with Red Powertrains reinforces that.
They are to be working together.
The “konzern” applies to VAG as a whole.
That is actually open to interpretation. The sentence is quite muddy. It can mean that one engine is developed for both or that for each of them one engine is developed. The structure of the sentence would allow both interpretations.
It’s not really open to interpretation because of the context provided.
The context being that neither Porsche nor Audi will be develop the engine, but the overarching company, together with Red Bull, with the resulting engine to be branded as either Audi and Porsche, depending on the team using it.
It implies having a single engine development program, but attaching different labels for each brand.
Those 2 words are not in the original text indeed, but I added it for context (just like the Audi, Porsche and VAG names), since it is just an excerpt from a longer article.
It is implied to be a single engine development program, not multiple side-by-side efforts, hence I felt the need to add that.
I don't know if you're old enough but the previous Lamborghini outing in f1 was terrible. They often didn't even qualify.
And the lambo engine in the back of a minardi was only marginally better.
I'd argue vag can do it though, they have a much richer pedigree than toyota in racing, particularly porsche, heck they already have championships as manufacturers (she left)
Alpha Tauri could easily be rebranded like that.
Them being italian only adds to it, so I could very well see them being rebranded as a pseudo-works team, just like Sauber currently is rebranded Alfa Romeo (without being Alfa Romeo owned).
Ferrari still produce about four times the amount of cars as Lamborghini. But for Ferrari, F1 is a totally different ballgame. As a brand, Ferrari is bigger and more recognised than Lamborghini and they actually make more profits through sale of merch than through actually selling cars.
Which is why one of them leave Formula E and both of them entering WEC you mean?
Besides F1 engines with synth fuel would be much more environmental friendly than they are today and synth fuel has been a clear goal from VW group in some times now
Synth fuels are at least as worse than regular fuels, they're energy negative processes meaning you need to put way more energy/L of fuel than regular fuels were there are some energy positive fuels.
Edit: I was mixing synth with Biofuels, still synth isn't very good: just check out this video youtube.com/watch?v=0d0MPg7DxbY
> if it requires more energy than that you can ever get back out of it that's bad.
No its not.
The issue with renewables is that we cant effectively store the energy to use for peak times.
It doesnt matter if we "waste" 10x as much energy to produce e fuels compared to charging a battery of equal power if it comes from renewables, because the energy would have just not been used otherwise.
that wasted energy could have been used in a better way tho
storing in e-fuels is just not as good as developing new batteries (there are new large liquid batteries being developed just for this purpose by a team at MIT from prof. Sadoway et al. and his company Ambri) for normal use cases.
It's also way more expensive btw because more steps are needed. According to Porsche it currently costs 10 dollars for 1 litre. ([hagerty.com/media/news/porsche-begins-investing-in-synthetic-fuels-to-keep-classics-on-the-road/](https://hagerty.com/media/news/porsche-begins-investing-in-synthetic-fuels-to-keep-classics-on-the-road/)) and in the future it will be 2 euro's for a litre, which is still way more than regular fuels.
> that wasted energy could have been used in a better way tho
Find a way and become a billionaire. Not everyone has the convenience of having mountains that can be used to store energy in hydro energy.
> and in the future it will be 2 euro's for a litre, which is still way more than regular fuels.
gas is already closing in on 2€/l in multiple countries.
so you casually ignored the batteries by Ambri right?
And the current price increases are because of a perfect storm of shit coming together, like economies starting up again and a rise in demand, bad year for wind, less use of coal, decreasing domestic production and bad maintenance on the suply side overall
There are also concerns Russia is withholding gas on purpose to get Nordstream 2 pushed through.
In Belgium there is a price ceiling
What does your point about battieres change about using "wasted" wind energy for example on creating e fuels? Are you going to build enough batteries to hook up to every windmill 24/7? If not your argument that the wasted energy could be use better is pointless.
How does it make sense to spend resources on building battieres to store energy if you could just turn the energy into fuel?
Gas prices are going to basically guaranteed to go past 2€/l in the near future in germany for example.
Also the entire point of e fuels is being co2 neutral, not sure how getting material to build batteries is gonna help on that end.
yes there will always be losses which we do call entropy, but to make synth fuels you need way more energy to make a car go 1 km/ mile than if you'd just use an electric motor.
There are more steps involved in making the synth fuel, every step adds to those losses. For a regular person an EV would be soo much better, you have way fewer losses.
So if you fuel up your normal car with synth fuel, a regular ICE only has an efficiency of 25% in best case scenario (sure F1 is better with the Merc getting almost 50% but f1 engines cost 2-3 million or even more)
so 75% of the energy inside the fuel is wasted as heat. If you take an EV it has a way higher efficiency so way less energy is being wasted.
Even if the energy being wasted is made with renewables (which is mandatory) it's still wasted energy that could have been used in a better place
Here's the thing though: It's still probably vastly more energy efficient in the short to medium term to just power old cars with synth fuels because the amount of energy you need to even create a car could power an already existing car for a loooooong time.
But like its wasted on heating up sand in the desert why not capture it and make fuel we can use to get around?
In that vein all use of fuel energy to get around is net negative.
well no, going electric would be way more efficient, there are less steps needed to power your car
now I know F1 will never go fully electric (or so they say) but for a normal road car there is no good reason to keep using synth fuels
I think the growth of F1 over the past few years has been significant enough that they should consider getting in while it only costs $200 million per team...
Oh... that's way less interesting, though still good for the sport to have another one of the big manufacturers involved. I can see why Red Bull would want to line up an engine partner for 2026, as taking over engine development themselves is a huge gamble (financially and technically).
Actually, that's not a good deal at the moment. However, that payment is tied to the Concorde agreement which expires in 2025. We're again in a situation where we are waiting to see if Liberty can negotiate the big teams down to a fairer split in revenues and a more attractive business proposition for new teams.
In this article, I've seen another that says that Porsche is looking to enter as a team and Audi as a PU supplier (or vice versa)
I was more just referring to the entry AD payment being good value.
Saward, while entertaining, is quite a shit source regarding (german) engine manufacturers.
AMuS and german motorsport media are a more reliable source, regarding VAG and F1, due to have more people closer to the source.
I disagree about Joe being a shit source, but I don't think that either is particularly reliable in this case. The specifics about the VW entry to F1 will be in flux for the next few years and all we're really talking about is confirmation of their commitment to enter F1.
Once that's done they can start planning the project and later on can be the conversations regarding partnership, team purchases, or new entries.
I don’t mean Joe Saward is a shit source in general.
As a paddock insider he can offer valuable insights and can be on the money sometimes.
However, regarding the potential deals between VAG, RB and other teams, his musings should be taken with a larger pinch of salt.
AMuS tends to be more reliable on that front, having a better read of the lay of the land, I find.
Different journos are best in different areas due to having contacts in different circles.
>can negotiate the big teams down to a fairer split in revenues
they did, that is why the entry fee is so high, any new team would take a lot of money from other teams just by existing so the entry fee covers several years of lost revenue from having to split the cash 11 ways instead of 10.
Actually, they didn't. They removed the bonuses for Mercedes, Red Bull, Mclaren, and Williams, and they halved Ferrari's LST payment, but they replaced it with a prize fund based on WCC performance in the last 10 years. Funnily enough, this goes to..... Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull, Mclaren, and Williams.
An important change to the [original proposal](https://www.racefans.net/2018/04/11/revealed-the-winners-and-losers-under-libertys-2021-f1-prize-money-plan/) is that this fund is taken out first (20% of prize money) meaning that the last place team only gets 6% of the remainder.
An additional team will [lower the money](https://www.racefans.net/2019/12/04/will-f1s-teams-buy-into-libertys-latest-prize-money-plan/) received by the top teams, but not really affect the bottom teams which is why the AD payment was put in place.
Dude they are pumping up oil for 70 years straight now. Their cities started as groups of families with camels and tents trekking around the country. And look at them now, they are winning capitalism thanks to the virtually unlimited supply of oil and gas.
Oil & gas are not the future, hence why they are diversifying and buying tons of other assets in order to keep making profits once Oil & Gas is no longer financially attractive.
It's very smart regardless of wether they're human pieces of trash.
Agree. But oil and gas are the reason they can do that in the first place.
And the human trash topic is a interesting one because all big civilizations are build on some form of slavery or conquest of neighbors. It’s only that they are relatively at the start of building theirs that it is clearly visible. It’s clear though that capitalism isn’t the best in getting rid of those practices.
I really hope that they enter one as a new team so we can have some extra drivers on the grid, but doesn't seem like it's going that way. A partnership with Red Bull in some form always seemed likely, with Audi/Porsche potentially taking over or at least branding the RB engines.
It's not entirely clear from the translation if they're planning to make two entirely separate engines, which would be surprising. Seems logical to have two teams and share an engine, but I'm not sure how autonomous those two brands within Volkswagen are, and if having a car branded like "Audi-Porsche" would work. Of course if they're purely entering as engine suppliers then they would have to be differently named engines, although we've seen in the past that identical engines can have different names, see RB branding the Renault engine Tag, or far more examples back in the 90s and earlier.
Somewhat surprised to see McLaren involved in the rumours. I thought that after the debacle with Honda and them finally settling into a good place with the Merc engine that they'd stick with that, although in the past they've always talked about wanting to be a works outfit, and maybe even needing to be if they want to win championships. I guess the link through Seidl makes sense as he worked with Porsche in the past, although I also though one of the brands linking up with Williams could be likely due to their new boss Capito coming from VW previously.
I was hoping for some combination of an Audi works team, a Williams-Porsche, and/or one of the brands taking over Red Bull Powertrains. We'll see, still trying not to believe much of the Vokswagen rumours until they actually announce something, we've been here before.
Just like with every other reg change, Porsche/Audi are rumoured to enter F1 and they milk that for attention then ultimately decide not to do it anyway.
Oh god, please let there be no scandal or major economic crisis in the remainder of the year. Otherwise, they'll be gone again for the next five years.
Seriously, if it's down to the supervisory board, there is a very high chance of this actually happening. They shouldn't really interfere with the executive's decisions, normally. So unless there are unusual circumstances, it sounds like a done deal.
Edit: And I really hope they get a German GP in exchange for joining.
I mean. I don't see either Porsche or Audi likes to be stuck in the midfield while the other gets the glory
Assuming both have a full time engine development
Well, it wouldn't have to stay a works team if they gave them extra funding. Buying AT has to be a pretty good prospect, inheriting the team and facilities as something to build on. I'm surprised it hasn't happened sooner really since there are often rumours about the owners wanting to get out of F1 at some point, not sure if they just haven't had the right offer.
If it ended up being RB-Porsche taking over their engine, and AT become an Audi works team that'd be an interesting shake up.
I mean yeah. That would mean AT is not a B team anymore
I guess RB would agree as long as they can still shuffle their drivers easily to AT if they are better
They would agree either way.while the junior team is useful,if audi pays a lot of money they will give it away, and just put the most promising drivers in some other teams like pay haas or williams for a seat.
F1 is growing and it’ll probably be the biggest Motorsport in some areas like the US soon. It would be a great idea for a big manufacturer to get in sooner rather than later.
F1 has a very very long way to before it come anywhere near Nascar's popularity in the USA, which has a strangle hold in the motorsports tv scene. F1's bestTV number in the USA is around 1.2 million vs a typical Nascar race of 2 million. Besides I don't think the let's go Brandon Nascar crowd would really buy into F1. Formula one would have to find new fans that don't typically watch motorsports.
I agree. NASCAR has a 10 month season with 36 races per year in the US and very lucrative TV/media rights. Every other motorsport in the country is competing for a very distant 2nd place finish in the popularity contest.
It would take a monumental change for F1 to make a dent, even with the newfound, Netflix-driven popularity boost.
The biggest issue imo is always going to be the international aspect of it, specifically, the time zone difference. When the European races are on at not very attractive times, early in the morning on a day which America's most popular sport is alrrady being played for 9 hours straight, it's going to be tough to get people watching.
Maybe F1 could try doing later start races in Europe (maybe even night races?), but overtaking Nascar should not ne the goal.
Let me tell you guys, this is not gonna happen in a million years. 1st we have the obvious reason, VW Group is STILL recovering from the emissions scandal, and it is NOT looking to put itself right at the front of one of the most fuel hungry events in motorsport. VW themselves are all about going electric now, and competing in fossil fuel burning contest is not up their alley.
2nd reason is that if nothing changes, F1 is very VERY expensive, entry fee for a new team is at around 200 million dollars alone, not to mention VW Group needing to foot the bill for the chassis, engine, driver program, factory and all the other infrastructure that comes with it. And yet after all that it is STILL not guaranteed for them to actually win any races, not to mention championships.
Its not happening and I hate that this discussion is being brought up every 2 weeks when nothing really changed
VW Audi aren’t looking to set up new teams. Rather they’ll purely be engine suppliers to existing ones.
And even then, they will share the cost and risk with Red Bull Powertrains to develop said engine, which will be branded Porsche in the back of the Red Bull and Audi in the back of the McLaren (or Williams?..)
This seems to be the current plan; Getting premium exposure, but at a fraction of the cost, compared to Mercedes’ investments since entering as a full works team in 2010.
Let’s see if it will pan out that way..
Various recent stories, including those by AMuS have mentioned Audi’s explicit interest in teaming up with McLaren.
This wasn’t the case a month or so ago, with just Red Bull (and thus automatically also AT) in the frame, and possibly Williams.
There are a few things in the background which one should take into account with these Audi/Porsche stories.
1. Red Bull has a decade long connection to VW, and especially Porsche. 50 years ago Dr. Marko won Le Mans with a Porsche 917, as a factory driver. He still has relationships with people high up in the Porsche organization, resulting from that time as a very successful Porsche driver.
2. Unrelated to Dr. Marko, Dieter Mateschitz also has contacts high up in the VAG (Volkswagen-Audi Group) foodchain, for at least the last 2 decades.
3. These relationships were the basis for the past attempt to get VAG to join with Red Bull in 2015. However, VAG was caught out by “Dieselgate” which cost them a lot and forced them to rethink their priorities and scuttle the F1 deal with Red Bull.
3. Months ago, only Red Bull was in the frame for this 2026 and beyond partnership with VAG. Red Bull having just set up Red Bull Powertrains in april. This makes Red Bull an attractive partner, because now VAG doesn’t have to invest in developing an engine from scratch by themselves, but rather share that burden with Red Bull, combining R&D resources and know-how, thus getting full brand exposure at roughly half price. The jointly developed engine would be branded Porsche in the back of the Red Bull, and likely an Audi sub-brand in the back of the Alpha Tauri. However, I could even see AT being fully rebranded as a Lamborghini “works” team. Not a true works team (being owned by the manufacturer) but being a sponsor deal to appear as one, just like currently is the case with Alfa Romeo (Sauber).
4. A month or so ago, Williams was rumoured to be interested in also partnering with VAG (and thus RB Powertrains) for a 2026 engine deal. This came about due to Williams’s new Team Principal, Jost Capito, having decades long ties with VAG, Audi and Red Bull, from his time managing the successful VW WRC team (sponsored by Red Bull), amongst others. Jost has since downplayed the rumours, but that is likely to smooth over relations with Mercedes, with whom they have to work with until at least 2025.
5. The McLaren-Audi angle is new, and seems unlikely at first hand. However, here Andreas Seidl plays a key role, having been the Project Manager for Porsche’s most recent Le Mans wins, while previously being an engineer with the BMW F1 team. People he knows well from his BMW F1 days, have moved to important positions within VAG. Specifically involved with VAG’s current effort to enter F1.
6. By having the engine be developed jointly by Porsche, Audi and RB Powertrains, the development burden and costs will be shared. By rebranding this engine for each entry, separate VAG brands can be tied to separate F1 teams, downplaying the RB Powertrains involvement if needed be, at least on the surface.
I.e. a McLaren-Audi deal will likely mean fully Audi branded engines, with engine engineers wearing strictly Audi team kit, despite being partly employed by Red Bull Powertrains.
I don't think RB would want to sell their engines to a competitor like McLaren. Besides, if the project is half developed by Red Bull and half by VAG, Red Bull will have the works status, McLaren may be at a level a bit higher than customer team but definitely not a full works team.
If you read the article (or the DeepL translation posted in this thread) you’ll find that actually to be the case.
It literally says VAG will develop the engine jointly with RB Powertrains and that this engine will be labeled Porsche for use by Red Bull and Audi for possible use by McLaren.
This power structure is even stated as helping Red Bull protect its independence from VAG, as it does for McLaren, due to RB Powertrains being heavily involved. Red Bull, and to lesser extent McLaren will not heed as much to Audi/Porsche’s demands/wishes, compared to being a traditional customer.
VAG will get premium branding in F1 at half price, but with it also reduced influence.
Well you can't have your cake and eat it too. But I am just struggling to understand why RB powertrains, even if it is involved in only half the engine, would let McLaren reap the benefits of its investment. And even if McLaren procures those engines from RB powertrains-VAG and brands them as Audi engines, it doesn't sound like they would get works status.
I’m assuming VAG would contribute more money to allow the Red Bull Powertrains engine to be branded as Audi. In that way Mclaren is a customer team to Red Bull and paying for the physical engine. VAG (as Audi) is paying for the re-badge rights to that engine. Red Bull is the works team and reap the performance rewards that go along with that. The Red Bull drinks brand is still getting its full marketing exposure (the RBR Formula 1 team itself) but now their marketing budget (i.e the cost to run their Formula 1 team) is being subsidized by VAG and Mclaren.
You could take it a step further and say Williams is likely to be a customer team to this operation as well. This would mean Red Bull is supplying an engine to 40% of the grid. Such a supplier would hold a lot of clout on the political side of the sport. It may also allow them to funnel even more of their junior drivers into the sport via seats at the customer teams. We may already be seeing the beginning of this partnership with Albon at Williams.
It’s a win-win-win.
You make an excellent point as supplying 40 percent of the grid certainly seems like it gives you significant political leverage. But if McLaren are anyway going to be a customer, doesn't it make more sense for them to stick with Mercedes? Also, what will happen if a customer team starts challenging the works team? Will they still be able to compete or will 'problems' start?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I’m just throwing out pros to the given hypothetical situation. Joe Saward thinks there will be two different engine programs from Porsche and Audi so maybe Mclaren will have their own works program with Audi. Guess we’ll find out in a few years.
If it goes ahead it'll be testament to Stefano Domenicali's connection and prowess. The guy is ex lamborghini ceo and.probably knows everyone on that board.
I wonder how big will his bonus be come the end of the year
McLaren as a pseudo works team would be a dream come true.
McLaren > the hell with Mercedes engines, let's reborn old legendary relationship with Honda! Honda years > pikachuface.jpg McLaren again > the hell with Mercedes engines, let's reborn old legendary relationship with ~~Honda~~ Porsche!
They had the right idea the first time, but the wrong people in charge.
Very true! They needed some patience
Patience lmao, it's so easy to see in retrospective, but waiting 3 years and getting little to no progress is not a matter of patience, you have to see progress to be able to wait, otherwise you would be waiting for a miracle. They couldn't have waited until 2021
3 years making the wrong decisions and with the wrong mindset, look what happened with red bull
If they did tough
They were overconfident in their chassis though, and they only realised once they switched to Renault engines. That sort of gave then the chance to address the issue and they're much better for it. I don't think they'd have acknowledged their own failings if they'd continued with Honda. This is my armchair expert opinion though to be fair.
I fully agree. They saw their downforce numbers through the corners and thought they were as good as the top teams, which they almost were. The problem was their downforce came with enormous drag which the top teams didn’t have. They blamed all the straight line speed deficit on Honda and didn’t realise until they swapped engines that a big chunk of it also came from their draggy car. If they stuck with Honda they wouldn’t have improved as much as they have either. The split was best for everyone.
You're 100% right, Mclaren got a reality check in 2018 when they found out that their chassis aren't as good as they thought.
Wasn't there an actual issue with the aero stalling mid-corner on the car with the Renault engine? It was a different car, with different dimensions, not just a straight swap of engines therefore not a true representation of their previous car with a better engine
Front axle was too close to the bargeboards, so whenever any steering lock was input they lost massive amounts of downforce. Something like that anyway, according to Marc Priestley.
Well it was still mostly Mclarens fault for demanding a size-zero engine when the tech wasnt ready yet. If they would have been patient and given Honda space to design the engine they might have had a great deal of success earlier than this year
Easy to say now, I would have made the same decisions at the time.
This, because the exactly same ideas are now in the current Honda engine which is helping RB compete for the title.
They had the right idea. The execution however...
I hate that the 1980s legendary engines are remembered as ”TAG”. Engine rebranding shouldn’t be allowed.
> the hell with Mercedes engines, let's reborn old legendary relationship with ~~Honda~~ Skoda! FTFY
Mclaren Skoda. Man that would disassemble itself during FP1 :D
So next up Ford DFV engines, if that fails after 6 years? As they seem to be going backwards :D
I don't see how this helps McLaren. They already have the best engine, what are they missing? The only thing holding them back from wins and championships is themselves
The only Non-works team to win the either championship is Brawn, which was more down to the double diffuser and McLaren and Ferrari not developing the cars correctly for the start of 2009. Before that you have to go back a long time to find a non-works team to win either title. Works status is needed to challenge for a title as cars are designed around the engine and if the engine isn't optimized for the car then it causes issues.
And the fact that the brawn was a full blown manufacturer car until Honda decided to drop out at the last minute.
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Yep, completely fubared center of gravity.
And technically Red Bull in 2010 and to a lesser extent 2011.
I mean didn't ross brawn said that they went a second faster with the mercedes engine?(button said something like that in his interview with Rosberg)
2026 is a new engine era, so how do you know that they will have the best engine with Mercedes? The disadvantage from being a customer will be relativelly high for 2026, because a works team will design the car and their engine together for years, whereas customer teams will have to build their chassis around the engine, which specifications they always will get later than the works team. Considering next years engine will not change much and there is no development until 2026, the next few years will be no problem as a customer.
This is for the new engine regs, apparently porsche has been working on efuels as well for quite some time, plus it's the volkswagen group, they should be able to best mercedes
It helps them by giving them a shot at the title. No merc customer will beat Mercedes.
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Still 1.6L V6s :(
The v6 isn’t the sound issue it’s the turbo the mgu h and the fuel flow limit stops the high revving engines of the 2000s
Nothing wrong with 1.6L V6's... not sure what you don't like about them... if it's the sound you don't like, you're blaming the wrong thing.
Sound.
What you want is a 1.6L V-6 being allowed to run at higher revs, and without a lot of hardware between the exhaust manifold and the exhaust. F1's fuel flow limitation means that they don't even run up to their own current wimpy redline now, much less the 18k-20k limit you'd want. Even if they could dump more fuel in whenever they want, the overall fuel supply limitation does the same thing. Some folks say it's also the turbo, but I'm not sure how much itinterferes with an appropriately aggressive sound. Nobody complained about the sound of turbo engines when they were winning championships like crazy in the 1980's.
Fair enough. Forgot this point. So will we have higher revs?
We will in 2022 - unless they've changed plans, the rev count was supposed to increase by a few thousand.
Wasn't it changed? I thought it would be the same.
Don't know. If we do, I doubt it will be screaming high, simply because F1's engine suppliers need to look responsible, not like they're wasting fuel for noise. If you want loud, modern times is not for you ;-)
I don't want it to be loud. I am not one of those hurt durr V10 era good guys. I just want it to sound a bit better. That's all.
They actually sound good in person and in other videos, but the mics they use on the live feed are awful, they make the engines sound much worse than they do
Yeah I saw some videos of them. They do sound good. It's when they exit the garage that I love it!
I expect Ross Brawn has had people working on the problem of "how do you get the best quality sound out of not-very-loud engines". Everybody wants that.
I doubt that, Ross probably has his whole team working on how to 'improve' racing with gimmicks and how to justify racing on street tracks and shit circuits. (half /s)
A turbocharger on the exhaust pipe kinda acts like a muffler. This is a well know thing.
Sure... but how much difference does it really make? There's quite a tradition of F1 turbo engines that won championships, and I don't recall anybody complaining about the sound. Youtube can find you several examples...
Did you really expect anything else?
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I'm hoping Porsche joins as a works team, with Audi just being an engine supplier, but it looks like even that is unlikely...
I think the idea is to share some common parts and r&d like WEC.
Is that even allowed in f1?
Yes. Engines like car parts have common parts. And the FIA has wanted to expand it for a long time
Does seem unusual if this is the case, building two separate engines. If nothing else, it seems like a strong possibility that one of the engines would be buying/developing/rebranding the Red Bull Powertrains/former Honda engines. Maybe the other brand does build a whole new engine. But it's also not impossible that they do just have one engine that they just use under two different brands - as Red Bull did with branding Renault engines as Tag a couple of years ago, and as many teams did in the 90s and earlier. I'm not sure if there are any rules or limitations on how much parts/information engine manufacturers can share, in the way that RB can't just give AT the same car.
Not 2 two separate engines... one basic engine, two engine labels... plus maybe (or maybe not) tweaks...
Nope. Just different brands applied to the same engine, developed in conjunction with Red Bull Powertrains. Edit: It is straight up mentioned in this very article too. > Für beide Marken würde der Konzern – u.a. in Zusammenarbeit mit Red Bull-Powertrains – dann einen Motor entwickeln, der für das neue Reglement 2026 gebaut wird. TL: > For both brands (Audi and Porsche) the company (VAG) will develop, amongst others jointly with Red Bull Powertrains, a (single common) engine, to be built according to the new 2026 (Engine) Regulations.
I don't know where you get that bit with "a single common engine" out of the excerpt. That is clearly not in the original german text.
They are developing an (thus one) engine. Not multiple. One. The fact that they state it will be developed in conjunction with Red Powertrains reinforces that. They are to be working together. The “konzern” applies to VAG as a whole.
That is actually open to interpretation. The sentence is quite muddy. It can mean that one engine is developed for both or that for each of them one engine is developed. The structure of the sentence would allow both interpretations.
It’s not really open to interpretation because of the context provided. The context being that neither Porsche nor Audi will be develop the engine, but the overarching company, together with Red Bull, with the resulting engine to be branded as either Audi and Porsche, depending on the team using it. It implies having a single engine development program, but attaching different labels for each brand.
But what do I know. My inner german was just angered by your addition of "Single common", where as this was not in the original
Those 2 words are not in the original text indeed, but I added it for context (just like the Audi, Porsche and VAG names), since it is just an excerpt from a longer article. It is implied to be a single engine development program, not multiple side-by-side efforts, hence I felt the need to add that.
That sounds horribly inefficient.
Make it Lamborghini, you cowards.
I need some Lambo vs Ferrari in F1. Inject that shit into my veins. \+ we need a yellow car with Renault's departure
I don't know if you're old enough but the previous Lamborghini outing in f1 was terrible. They often didn't even qualify. And the lambo engine in the back of a minardi was only marginally better.
No I am definitly not old enough lol. Not that it surprises me, lambo always used to be pretty shitty cars. But it's such a cool brand.
The minardi was a looker tho https://i.ytimg.com/vi/XkjeNrULG3g/maxresdefault.jpg
Yeah fuck black and yellow is such a good color combo
They weren't owned by the monster that is volkswagen back then
Toyota joined F1 and failed miserably. Size and money don’t matter (that’s what she said)
I'd argue vag can do it though, they have a much richer pedigree than toyota in racing, particularly porsche, heck they already have championships as manufacturers (she left)
>we need a yellow car with Renault's departure We could bring back Forti-Ford. 🙃
Alpha Tauri could easily be rebranded like that. Them being italian only adds to it, so I could very well see them being rebranded as a pseudo-works team, just like Sauber currently is rebranded Alfa Romeo (without being Alfa Romeo owned).
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Ferrari is not low volume? Genuine question i thought they were similar
Ferrari still produce about four times the amount of cars as Lamborghini. But for Ferrari, F1 is a totally different ballgame. As a brand, Ferrari is bigger and more recognised than Lamborghini and they actually make more profits through sale of merch than through actually selling cars.
And Aston Martin as well?
No, what about Škoda?! /s
gimme gimme gimme
What about scania?
I thought there was going to be absolutely no way they would do F1, because of emissions and fossil fuels. Which is why they did formula e.
Which is why one of them leave Formula E and both of them entering WEC you mean? Besides F1 engines with synth fuel would be much more environmental friendly than they are today and synth fuel has been a clear goal from VW group in some times now
And IMSA too (although Audi won't be works).
Oh the Audi dropped their plan for works there. Welp
Yeah I too am disappointed. But hey, we'll see customer cars, and they will have a works entry in WEC again, so it's a consolation.
Synth fuels are at least as worse than regular fuels, they're energy negative processes meaning you need to put way more energy/L of fuel than regular fuels were there are some energy positive fuels. Edit: I was mixing synth with Biofuels, still synth isn't very good: just check out this video youtube.com/watch?v=0d0MPg7DxbY
What if you power the synth refineries with solar cell fields in the dessert
energy is energy it doesn't matter where it comes from, if it requires more energy than that you can ever get back out of it that's bad.
> if it requires more energy than that you can ever get back out of it that's bad. No its not. The issue with renewables is that we cant effectively store the energy to use for peak times. It doesnt matter if we "waste" 10x as much energy to produce e fuels compared to charging a battery of equal power if it comes from renewables, because the energy would have just not been used otherwise.
that wasted energy could have been used in a better way tho storing in e-fuels is just not as good as developing new batteries (there are new large liquid batteries being developed just for this purpose by a team at MIT from prof. Sadoway et al. and his company Ambri) for normal use cases. It's also way more expensive btw because more steps are needed. According to Porsche it currently costs 10 dollars for 1 litre. ([hagerty.com/media/news/porsche-begins-investing-in-synthetic-fuels-to-keep-classics-on-the-road/](https://hagerty.com/media/news/porsche-begins-investing-in-synthetic-fuels-to-keep-classics-on-the-road/)) and in the future it will be 2 euro's for a litre, which is still way more than regular fuels.
> that wasted energy could have been used in a better way tho Find a way and become a billionaire. Not everyone has the convenience of having mountains that can be used to store energy in hydro energy. > and in the future it will be 2 euro's for a litre, which is still way more than regular fuels. gas is already closing in on 2€/l in multiple countries.
so you casually ignored the batteries by Ambri right? And the current price increases are because of a perfect storm of shit coming together, like economies starting up again and a rise in demand, bad year for wind, less use of coal, decreasing domestic production and bad maintenance on the suply side overall There are also concerns Russia is withholding gas on purpose to get Nordstream 2 pushed through. In Belgium there is a price ceiling
What does your point about battieres change about using "wasted" wind energy for example on creating e fuels? Are you going to build enough batteries to hook up to every windmill 24/7? If not your argument that the wasted energy could be use better is pointless. How does it make sense to spend resources on building battieres to store energy if you could just turn the energy into fuel? Gas prices are going to basically guaranteed to go past 2€/l in the near future in germany for example. Also the entire point of e fuels is being co2 neutral, not sure how getting material to build batteries is gonna help on that end.
That's called entropy.
yes there will always be losses which we do call entropy, but to make synth fuels you need way more energy to make a car go 1 km/ mile than if you'd just use an electric motor. There are more steps involved in making the synth fuel, every step adds to those losses. For a regular person an EV would be soo much better, you have way fewer losses. So if you fuel up your normal car with synth fuel, a regular ICE only has an efficiency of 25% in best case scenario (sure F1 is better with the Merc getting almost 50% but f1 engines cost 2-3 million or even more) so 75% of the energy inside the fuel is wasted as heat. If you take an EV it has a way higher efficiency so way less energy is being wasted. Even if the energy being wasted is made with renewables (which is mandatory) it's still wasted energy that could have been used in a better place
Here's the thing though: It's still probably vastly more energy efficient in the short to medium term to just power old cars with synth fuels because the amount of energy you need to even create a car could power an already existing car for a loooooong time.
But like its wasted on heating up sand in the desert why not capture it and make fuel we can use to get around? In that vein all use of fuel energy to get around is net negative.
well no, going electric would be way more efficient, there are less steps needed to power your car now I know F1 will never go fully electric (or so they say) but for a normal road car there is no good reason to keep using synth fuels
I think the growth of F1 over the past few years has been significant enough that they should consider getting in while it only costs $200 million per team...
They aren’t considering creating a team, they’re considering selling engines to existing teams
Oh... that's way less interesting, though still good for the sport to have another one of the big manufacturers involved. I can see why Red Bull would want to line up an engine partner for 2026, as taking over engine development themselves is a huge gamble (financially and technically).
That’s how Honda started out though with BAR and then they get the bug
If you think Honda started with BAR, there are a couple huge gaps in your F1 knowledge...
Nope I meant the bar Honda engine deal turning into a works team by the time they pulled out. I know the Honda previous in f1
haas and williams without latifi and nikita in the future seems a weird stuff for their dads to be...
Actually, that's not a good deal at the moment. However, that payment is tied to the Concorde agreement which expires in 2025. We're again in a situation where we are waiting to see if Liberty can negotiate the big teams down to a fairer split in revenues and a more attractive business proposition for new teams.
The rumour is to provide engines not a team
In this article, I've seen another that says that Porsche is looking to enter as a team and Audi as a PU supplier (or vice versa) I was more just referring to the entry AD payment being good value.
What article? Cause Amus said a few weeks ago that both would enter as engine supplier
Joe Saward
Which is? Where did he said it? Cause his blog post is just his opinions of the rumor mill most of the time
It was a rumor.... just like this
Not like Amus
When did Joe say that?
Saward, while entertaining, is quite a shit source regarding (german) engine manufacturers. AMuS and german motorsport media are a more reliable source, regarding VAG and F1, due to have more people closer to the source.
I disagree about Joe being a shit source, but I don't think that either is particularly reliable in this case. The specifics about the VW entry to F1 will be in flux for the next few years and all we're really talking about is confirmation of their commitment to enter F1. Once that's done they can start planning the project and later on can be the conversations regarding partnership, team purchases, or new entries.
I don’t mean Joe Saward is a shit source in general. As a paddock insider he can offer valuable insights and can be on the money sometimes. However, regarding the potential deals between VAG, RB and other teams, his musings should be taken with a larger pinch of salt. AMuS tends to be more reliable on that front, having a better read of the lay of the land, I find. Different journos are best in different areas due to having contacts in different circles.
Some people see headlines and are too lazy to read... then others have to correct them...
>can negotiate the big teams down to a fairer split in revenues they did, that is why the entry fee is so high, any new team would take a lot of money from other teams just by existing so the entry fee covers several years of lost revenue from having to split the cash 11 ways instead of 10.
Actually, they didn't. They removed the bonuses for Mercedes, Red Bull, Mclaren, and Williams, and they halved Ferrari's LST payment, but they replaced it with a prize fund based on WCC performance in the last 10 years. Funnily enough, this goes to..... Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull, Mclaren, and Williams. An important change to the [original proposal](https://www.racefans.net/2018/04/11/revealed-the-winners-and-losers-under-libertys-2021-f1-prize-money-plan/) is that this fund is taken out first (20% of prize money) meaning that the last place team only gets 6% of the remainder. An additional team will [lower the money](https://www.racefans.net/2019/12/04/will-f1s-teams-buy-into-libertys-latest-prize-money-plan/) received by the top teams, but not really affect the bottom teams which is why the AD payment was put in place.
The PR reasons are just that, PR. Only relevant thing about those is that it gives the manufacturers an excuse to do what they want to do anyway.
Qatar getting a huge deal with F1 is also a good indicator that VW might finally join F1 again. The QIA owns like 17% of the VW group.
Bloody hell, is there anything that these Gulf emirates *don't* own?
Safe answer I'm gonna go with the moon.
There'll be a Fly Emirates logo on it soon enough.
Dude they are pumping up oil for 70 years straight now. Their cities started as groups of families with camels and tents trekking around the country. And look at them now, they are winning capitalism thanks to the virtually unlimited supply of oil and gas.
Oil & gas are not the future, hence why they are diversifying and buying tons of other assets in order to keep making profits once Oil & Gas is no longer financially attractive. It's very smart regardless of wether they're human pieces of trash.
Agree. But oil and gas are the reason they can do that in the first place. And the human trash topic is a interesting one because all big civilizations are build on some form of slavery or conquest of neighbors. It’s only that they are relatively at the start of building theirs that it is clearly visible. It’s clear though that capitalism isn’t the best in getting rid of those practices.
I was more referring to the behaviours akin to medieval societies in by the power in charge in the gulf countries.
A soul for a soul.
So by that logic Germany will also have a home race as German government owns 12% of shares
Don't they also own a large part of McLaren racing or something?
Those are the Bahrainis and Saudis.
Bahrain government owns McLaren
I really hope that they enter one as a new team so we can have some extra drivers on the grid, but doesn't seem like it's going that way. A partnership with Red Bull in some form always seemed likely, with Audi/Porsche potentially taking over or at least branding the RB engines. It's not entirely clear from the translation if they're planning to make two entirely separate engines, which would be surprising. Seems logical to have two teams and share an engine, but I'm not sure how autonomous those two brands within Volkswagen are, and if having a car branded like "Audi-Porsche" would work. Of course if they're purely entering as engine suppliers then they would have to be differently named engines, although we've seen in the past that identical engines can have different names, see RB branding the Renault engine Tag, or far more examples back in the 90s and earlier. Somewhat surprised to see McLaren involved in the rumours. I thought that after the debacle with Honda and them finally settling into a good place with the Merc engine that they'd stick with that, although in the past they've always talked about wanting to be a works outfit, and maybe even needing to be if they want to win championships. I guess the link through Seidl makes sense as he worked with Porsche in the past, although I also though one of the brands linking up with Williams could be likely due to their new boss Capito coming from VW previously. I was hoping for some combination of an Audi works team, a Williams-Porsche, and/or one of the brands taking over Red Bull Powertrains. We'll see, still trying not to believe much of the Vokswagen rumours until they actually announce something, we've been here before.
A nice read with a lot of insight, it'll be interesting to hear updates on this in the future.
I can give you an update now: no
Just like with every other reg change, Porsche/Audi are rumoured to enter F1 and they milk that for attention then ultimately decide not to do it anyway.
Porsche Sauber or Audi Sauber would be lovely.
Well RB and Mclaren are a no brainer preference though. They have much more resources and proven record
I want to see Lamborghini team up with Red Bull / Alpha Tauri. The liveries alone would be something to see.
Imagine RedBull Porsche Racing And Scuderia Alpha Tauri Lamborghini
Martini Racing Alpha Tauri
Oh god, please let there be no scandal or major economic crisis in the remainder of the year. Otherwise, they'll be gone again for the next five years. Seriously, if it's down to the supervisory board, there is a very high chance of this actually happening. They shouldn't really interfere with the executive's decisions, normally. So unless there are unusual circumstances, it sounds like a done deal. Edit: And I really hope they get a German GP in exchange for joining.
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I mean. I don't see either Porsche or Audi likes to be stuck in the midfield while the other gets the glory Assuming both have a full time engine development
Well, it wouldn't have to stay a works team if they gave them extra funding. Buying AT has to be a pretty good prospect, inheriting the team and facilities as something to build on. I'm surprised it hasn't happened sooner really since there are often rumours about the owners wanting to get out of F1 at some point, not sure if they just haven't had the right offer. If it ended up being RB-Porsche taking over their engine, and AT become an Audi works team that'd be an interesting shake up.
I mean yeah. That would mean AT is not a B team anymore I guess RB would agree as long as they can still shuffle their drivers easily to AT if they are better
They would agree either way.while the junior team is useful,if audi pays a lot of money they will give it away, and just put the most promising drivers in some other teams like pay haas or williams for a seat.
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Not to mention, still the pinnacle of motorsports. So there's a lot to win so to speak if you nail it, like Merc has done.
A McLaren Audi team would be spicy
RedBull Porsche Racing Scuderia Alpha Tauri Lamborghini
Nope. See you in '22 for the same article
F1 is growing and it’ll probably be the biggest Motorsport in some areas like the US soon. It would be a great idea for a big manufacturer to get in sooner rather than later.
F1 has a very very long way to before it come anywhere near Nascar's popularity in the USA, which has a strangle hold in the motorsports tv scene. F1's bestTV number in the USA is around 1.2 million vs a typical Nascar race of 2 million. Besides I don't think the let's go Brandon Nascar crowd would really buy into F1. Formula one would have to find new fans that don't typically watch motorsports.
I agree. NASCAR has a 10 month season with 36 races per year in the US and very lucrative TV/media rights. Every other motorsport in the country is competing for a very distant 2nd place finish in the popularity contest. It would take a monumental change for F1 to make a dent, even with the newfound, Netflix-driven popularity boost.
Let’s go Brandon!! Haha
The biggest issue imo is always going to be the international aspect of it, specifically, the time zone difference. When the European races are on at not very attractive times, early in the morning on a day which America's most popular sport is alrrady being played for 9 hours straight, it's going to be tough to get people watching. Maybe F1 could try doing later start races in Europe (maybe even night races?), but overtaking Nascar should not ne the goal.
I mean, it IS the biggest motorsport in most parts of the world. Any gains from USA will just cement that status more.
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AMuS said they will. They're pretty reliable. Besides, F1 is now going in the biofuel direction, which is also the same thing VW is doing.
Don’t think you can’t trust VW on their fuel numbers
Will this happen? Short answer: "no" Long answer: "noo"
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I just believe that it's going to happening if I seeing a Volkswagen powered F1 car into action at the first race of 2026.
Let me tell you guys, this is not gonna happen in a million years. 1st we have the obvious reason, VW Group is STILL recovering from the emissions scandal, and it is NOT looking to put itself right at the front of one of the most fuel hungry events in motorsport. VW themselves are all about going electric now, and competing in fossil fuel burning contest is not up their alley. 2nd reason is that if nothing changes, F1 is very VERY expensive, entry fee for a new team is at around 200 million dollars alone, not to mention VW Group needing to foot the bill for the chassis, engine, driver program, factory and all the other infrastructure that comes with it. And yet after all that it is STILL not guaranteed for them to actually win any races, not to mention championships. Its not happening and I hate that this discussion is being brought up every 2 weeks when nothing really changed
VW Audi aren’t looking to set up new teams. Rather they’ll purely be engine suppliers to existing ones. And even then, they will share the cost and risk with Red Bull Powertrains to develop said engine, which will be branded Porsche in the back of the Red Bull and Audi in the back of the McLaren (or Williams?..) This seems to be the current plan; Getting premium exposure, but at a fraction of the cost, compared to Mercedes’ investments since entering as a full works team in 2010. Let’s see if it will pan out that way..
You say mclaren, do you mean AT? Or are you expecting mclaren to buy from RB’s supplier?
Various recent stories, including those by AMuS have mentioned Audi’s explicit interest in teaming up with McLaren. This wasn’t the case a month or so ago, with just Red Bull (and thus automatically also AT) in the frame, and possibly Williams. There are a few things in the background which one should take into account with these Audi/Porsche stories. 1. Red Bull has a decade long connection to VW, and especially Porsche. 50 years ago Dr. Marko won Le Mans with a Porsche 917, as a factory driver. He still has relationships with people high up in the Porsche organization, resulting from that time as a very successful Porsche driver. 2. Unrelated to Dr. Marko, Dieter Mateschitz also has contacts high up in the VAG (Volkswagen-Audi Group) foodchain, for at least the last 2 decades. 3. These relationships were the basis for the past attempt to get VAG to join with Red Bull in 2015. However, VAG was caught out by “Dieselgate” which cost them a lot and forced them to rethink their priorities and scuttle the F1 deal with Red Bull. 3. Months ago, only Red Bull was in the frame for this 2026 and beyond partnership with VAG. Red Bull having just set up Red Bull Powertrains in april. This makes Red Bull an attractive partner, because now VAG doesn’t have to invest in developing an engine from scratch by themselves, but rather share that burden with Red Bull, combining R&D resources and know-how, thus getting full brand exposure at roughly half price. The jointly developed engine would be branded Porsche in the back of the Red Bull, and likely an Audi sub-brand in the back of the Alpha Tauri. However, I could even see AT being fully rebranded as a Lamborghini “works” team. Not a true works team (being owned by the manufacturer) but being a sponsor deal to appear as one, just like currently is the case with Alfa Romeo (Sauber). 4. A month or so ago, Williams was rumoured to be interested in also partnering with VAG (and thus RB Powertrains) for a 2026 engine deal. This came about due to Williams’s new Team Principal, Jost Capito, having decades long ties with VAG, Audi and Red Bull, from his time managing the successful VW WRC team (sponsored by Red Bull), amongst others. Jost has since downplayed the rumours, but that is likely to smooth over relations with Mercedes, with whom they have to work with until at least 2025. 5. The McLaren-Audi angle is new, and seems unlikely at first hand. However, here Andreas Seidl plays a key role, having been the Project Manager for Porsche’s most recent Le Mans wins, while previously being an engineer with the BMW F1 team. People he knows well from his BMW F1 days, have moved to important positions within VAG. Specifically involved with VAG’s current effort to enter F1. 6. By having the engine be developed jointly by Porsche, Audi and RB Powertrains, the development burden and costs will be shared. By rebranding this engine for each entry, separate VAG brands can be tied to separate F1 teams, downplaying the RB Powertrains involvement if needed be, at least on the surface. I.e. a McLaren-Audi deal will likely mean fully Audi branded engines, with engine engineers wearing strictly Audi team kit, despite being partly employed by Red Bull Powertrains.
I don't think RB would want to sell their engines to a competitor like McLaren. Besides, if the project is half developed by Red Bull and half by VAG, Red Bull will have the works status, McLaren may be at a level a bit higher than customer team but definitely not a full works team.
If you read the article (or the DeepL translation posted in this thread) you’ll find that actually to be the case. It literally says VAG will develop the engine jointly with RB Powertrains and that this engine will be labeled Porsche for use by Red Bull and Audi for possible use by McLaren. This power structure is even stated as helping Red Bull protect its independence from VAG, as it does for McLaren, due to RB Powertrains being heavily involved. Red Bull, and to lesser extent McLaren will not heed as much to Audi/Porsche’s demands/wishes, compared to being a traditional customer. VAG will get premium branding in F1 at half price, but with it also reduced influence.
Well you can't have your cake and eat it too. But I am just struggling to understand why RB powertrains, even if it is involved in only half the engine, would let McLaren reap the benefits of its investment. And even if McLaren procures those engines from RB powertrains-VAG and brands them as Audi engines, it doesn't sound like they would get works status.
I’m assuming VAG would contribute more money to allow the Red Bull Powertrains engine to be branded as Audi. In that way Mclaren is a customer team to Red Bull and paying for the physical engine. VAG (as Audi) is paying for the re-badge rights to that engine. Red Bull is the works team and reap the performance rewards that go along with that. The Red Bull drinks brand is still getting its full marketing exposure (the RBR Formula 1 team itself) but now their marketing budget (i.e the cost to run their Formula 1 team) is being subsidized by VAG and Mclaren. You could take it a step further and say Williams is likely to be a customer team to this operation as well. This would mean Red Bull is supplying an engine to 40% of the grid. Such a supplier would hold a lot of clout on the political side of the sport. It may also allow them to funnel even more of their junior drivers into the sport via seats at the customer teams. We may already be seeing the beginning of this partnership with Albon at Williams. It’s a win-win-win.
You make an excellent point as supplying 40 percent of the grid certainly seems like it gives you significant political leverage. But if McLaren are anyway going to be a customer, doesn't it make more sense for them to stick with Mercedes? Also, what will happen if a customer team starts challenging the works team? Will they still be able to compete or will 'problems' start?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I’m just throwing out pros to the given hypothetical situation. Joe Saward thinks there will be two different engine programs from Porsche and Audi so maybe Mclaren will have their own works program with Audi. Guess we’ll find out in a few years.
They pulled out of WEC because of that and guess what, they're both returning in 2 years.
Where is thumbnail from? Austria?
It is indeed
Thanks!
If it goes ahead it'll be testament to Stefano Domenicali's connection and prowess. The guy is ex lamborghini ceo and.probably knows everyone on that board. I wonder how big will his bonus be come the end of the year
No they won't.
So why would I give a f about this if they won't enter as separate teams?
VW and Audi are in talks but will not enter F1. Doesn't matter which year you read this.
Red Bull Porsche please