The other day there were a slew of stories about Volkswagen NOT entering Formula 1 nor NASCAR. All the usual monkeys with typewriters duly pumped out lots of stories parroting the news (if indeed monkeys can parrot), without even engaging the first gear in their brains.
The big question in such matters is what constitutes Volkswagen. You see, there is Volkswagen and then there is Volkswagen…
The Volkswagen Group, also known as Volkswagen AG, is the holding company for the entire Volkswagen empire, which will soon include Porsche, as well as Audi, SEAT, Skoda, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Scania, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles… and Volkswagen Passenger Cars, which is the division will sells cars branded VW.
According to the company website, “each brand has its own character and operates as an independent entity on the market”. Thus Volkswagen Motorsport, run by former racer Kris Nissen, does not dictate what happens at Audi’s motorsport division in Ingolstadt, or the motorsport activities at Skoda, or SEAT. Nissen looks after VW brand activities such as the Dakar Rally programmes, Formula 3 engines, Polos and – so rumour has it – a nascent scheme to compete in the World Rally Championship with Sébastien Loeb…
Ulrich Hackenberg, the man quoted as saying that Volkswagen has no plans for F1 or NASCAR, is one of the men in charge of the Volkswagen brand. He is not a member of the Board of Management of Volkswagen AG, nor is he a member of the Supervisory Board of the main company. Hackenberg is actually a pretty small fish, as simply a member of the Board of Management for the Volkswagen brand. Thus he cannot speak for anything other than VW vehicles. There is no guarantee, in fact, that he would even be part of the decision-making process about an F1 or NASCAR programme involving Porsche or Audi or Skoda, SEAT, Bugatti etc etc etc…
So, when Hackenberg says that VW is not getting involved, he does not mean that Volkswagen AG is not getting involved in a particular sport, he means that the VW brand is not…
joeblogsf1 
I wonder if VW would badge the proposed F1 engine as an Alfa Romeo if they returned to the sport……and purchased Alfa Romeo!
There has apparently been a lot of rumours for months now which continued at Geneva, though Fiat are denying that they would sell and have elaborated on their own plans.
However one of the British road car magazines seem to think that Alfa Romeo would share engines with Porche if VW did do a deal which would suggest that Alfa might become a more unique marque in the group compared to the VW/Skoda/Audi brands.
So an F1 programme would be a great way of relaunching the brand……. maybe!
Oh I see Joe – so it will be Scania or Volkswagen commercial vehicles then!
Michael C,
Hey after Lada in F1 anything is possible… Why not Scania F1?
Lol anything is possible…… I am very much looking forward to F1 technology in my Scania bus, fitted with a blown exhaust and KERS. The idea of a late bus sill be a thing of the past!!
Cheers Joe
My money’s on Williams-Porsche for 2013.
And it would be interesting, would it not, if the dosh behind the mystery buyer snapping up the Williams shares (listed, completely co-incidentally, in Germany) was VW’s…
Please make it Skoda! Things would never be the same.
And Scania F1 should hire Alain Prost as a driver so he can say his car drives like a truck….. 😉
I am still waiting to see VW in Nascar. VW’s goal is to substantially increase its sales volume in North America. To that end, I would not be surprised if VW started looking more closely at the series where two of its competitors (Toyota and GM) are racing.
Ahhhh. Just like Lotus and Lotus.
Joe
is that VW will compete in the World Rally EMPLOYING Seb Loeb, or VW will compete in the World Rally AGAINST Seb Loeb?
I’d heard mention of them coming into WRC but nothing about Loeb. It would make sense from a Red Bull point of view (them sponsoring the Race Towrag and already having a tie in with Loeb), but I can’t ever see Seb leaving Citroen, especially to join the Germans!
As a long time petrolhead, F1 fan and (part time) VeeDubber i find it laughable that anyone in VW would consider investing in F1 but can definitely see them being interested in WRC as they already have their fingers in that pie via Skoda. Audi or Porsche would fit in much better!
Once again Joe, thanks for taking to task the less evolved members of the press who deal only in hype and headlines and have sod all interest in the facts or back story.
Apart from the brands for commercial vehicles, I’d also exclude Bugatti and Bentley from the list because it wouldn’t make much sense, to me at least. Selling five times more Bugattis by winning in F1, spending more than their turnover for marketing? I don’t think so. Making red-top headlines in a Bentley? Hardly.
For SEAT and Skoda, they could use it to prove their respective “sportiness” or “street cred”. Making money out of it would still be quite a challenge, given their customer bases which are mainly looking for a cheap, affordable runabout.
For Audi it could make sense, if the (still not finalized) regulations for 2013 onwards are leaning enough towards rewarding efficiency, because that’s one of the selling points of Audi for their rather geeky target group – but they’re already doing that in sportscar racing, dominating Le Mans for the last decade, for much less money.
The Porsche way would be to only enter if you could guarantee success, which is not really possible, and without success it would be the brand with the most to lose regarding their brand image. Buying a Porsche if they’d be constantly seen losing against not only Ferrari but a car from a drinks company, powered by a Renault engine? Hmmm.
Lamborghini is going after Ferrari’s customers for roughly five decades now, and they’ve always struggled to get an equal share of that market. How would you describe the Lamborgini brand to someone who’s never heard of them? It’s like a Ferrari, only without the success in F1.
As a little kid I adored scania and even had a little tune to say whenever I spotted one. I’m beginning to realise why I might be counted as odd now 🙂
What brand in the Volkswagen AG stable would benefit the most from a gig in Formula 1? To me it would have to be one of the more exotic or prestigious brands, maybe Porsche, or Lamborghini. As for NASCAR maybe Audi or Skoda might be a good fit.
Getting off topic a bit, but the separation of all the different brand’s motor sport divisions seems a little inefficient. Would it not be better to pool all the expertise from the separate brands into one unit (for arguments sake called Volkswagen AG Motorsport) to develop the best race cars possible, and then simply brand them to suit whatever the marketing guys decide is best for certain markets. For instance under a combined unit they could develop a Volkswagen AG Motorsport NASCAR, and then the marketing guys decide that they want to sell a heap of Audis in the US, so they stick an Audi sticker on it, and similarly they might decide that they wanna run a different brand in Le Mans series, they could simply peel off the Audi sticker, and slap a Porsche one on.
Hi Joe… Did you see this news http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/92733 ? Could it be the start of a longer term plan to get back into other forms of motorsport (eg F1 eventually?)