In the last few weeks, Volkswagen has finally become the world’s number-one automobile manufacturer, following a four-year tussle for the control of Porsche. For the chairman of VW’s Supervisory Board Ferdinand Piech it is the end of a lifelong struggle to unite the two companies, both of which were founded by Ferdinand Porsche. His goal was to become the number one car company by 2018 but as others ran into troubles of different kinds, VW stayed focussed and produced more cars. The company now sells 8.5 million vehicles a year and is aiming to push that up to 11 million by 2018. At the age of 75 Piech might be forgiven for now wanting to take life a little easier, his place in automotive history assured. Piech has long been opposed to getting involved in a distraction such as Formula 1. He wants to sell cars based on the technology that they deliver to the public, not on technology that is developed for a specific set of sporting regulations. Some at VW believe that the company should get into F1 and use its global reach to sell more cars, but Piech is the boss and his views are the ones that matter. His primary lieutenant in recent years has been Martin Winterkorn, who is now the chairman of the board of management of Volkswagen and also the chairman of the supervisory boards of Audi and Porsche. He is now 65 and under the company’s new rules will be required to stand down when he reaches the age of 67 in May 2014.
The word from Germany is that Winterkorn is likely to become the next chairman of the Volkswagen supervisory board, but he will continue to follow Piech’s policies. The question that is now being asked is who will replace Winterkorn as head of VW and whether this will have an effect on the company’s sporting policies.
The man deemed to be the most likely is Rupert Stadler (49), who has been head of the board of management of Audi AG since 2007. It is suggested that Wolfgang Durheimer (53) will then take over Audi. He was recently put on to the board of Audi AG after a career that has seen him as head of development at Porsche and then as head of Bentley and Bugatti. Also moving on to the Audi board is another high flyer 44-year-old Italian Luca de Meo, a refugee from Fiat.
On the Volkswagen management board are also a couple of ambitious youngsters in Christian Klingler (43), the head of sales and marketing and Arno Antlitz (42), the head of accounting. The current head of Porsche Matthias Müller (59) is too old to be in the running for further big jobs.
Durheimer has also said that he thinks that Volkswagen should have a Formula 1 programme in 2018, but it remains to be seen whether this will actually happen. Piech remains the strong man in VW and as long as he does it is highly unlikely that the company (or any of its subsidiaries) will get involved in Grand Prix racing.
Are they not already in a duel with Honda in Moto GP ? BMW in WSB ? ref DUCATI purchase???
Young, up and coming pro-racing (assumption) managers, vs. the old lions.
We might yet see VW in F1, I can only hope.
“Durheimer has also said that he thinks that Volkswagen should have a Formula 1 programme in 2018, but it remains to be seen whether this will actually happen. ”
Well if they want to have any kind of position worthy of note in F1 by 2018 they do not have much time to waste. As Joe pointed out a few weeks back, the budgets for F1 design and development could come from mainstream budgets in a sufficiently large (and most importantly, profitable) car company.
Of course by then they may well be major runners in LMS which will have amongst it’s allowed configurations, the same spec engines as in F1. 2014.
But it takes several years to become a top four team in F1 , Merc did the right thing in buying an existing top class team. But who could VW buy?
If Merc reduce involvement and field a team as AMG, (or even Chrysler) this could then leave VW as flag bearers for Germany, so they had better make a decent job of it.
It’s pretty clear Herr Piech got it right.
After a brief abortive flourish in F1 they simply concentrated on Sports Car racing, and excelled at that.
To me Porsche means thoroughbred sports car.
Messing around in F1 again, will only dilute the “legend”.
Perhaps others disagree?
As a relatively small company, Porsche’s MO for many decades has been to enter classes where it can achieve overwhelming dominance by substantially outspending much smaller rivals and then filling the field with affordable customer cars, without having to spend big or go head to head with deep pocketed first class rivals.
That’s given them a great appearance of invincibility.
Entering F1 wouldn’t just not promote Porsche, it would actively undermine the brand positioning they’ve been building up pretty consistently for the last 40 or 50 years. They’d be bonkers.
Yes, you are right. I remember when Porsche entered CART in the US of A and were dismal.
Oversimplification.
While you can pull out examples that will support your hypothesis, there are also numerous other examples from Porsche history that refute it. Most of Porsche’s Le Mans success came in the face of strong opposition (at various times that included factory efforts from Ferrari, Renault, Lancia, Ford, Mercedes and Toyota). Yes, the CART effort, outside of the Mid Ohio win was not a success, and the Footwork project was a failure, but those TAG turbo engines for McLaren were not too shabby.
That said, I agree that Porsche’s recent history has not been as great. However, I hope their imminent return to Le Mans in 2014 changes that…
@Toleman fan:
Good post Sir! I particularly liked this, because I’ve observed for decades but never actually realised the truth of what you wrote…
q/
As a relatively small company, Porsche’s MO for many decades has been to enter classes where it can achieve overwhelming dominance by substantially outspending much smaller rivals and then filling the field with affordable customer cars, without having to spend big or go head to head with deep pocketed first class rivals.
That’s given them a great appearance of invincibility.
/q
Clever Blokes at Stuttgart.
In passing: If you’ve not listened to Brian Redman’s “Motor Sport” podcast of a few months ago, please do so. It is excellent! With lots of insights into racing for Porsche, with Seppi, and Pedro. He’s a talented impressionist, and very funny too.
If you’re going to start praising my insight, I’ll have to admit I stole it.
From a tacky, small format paperback published in – get this – 1973.
The format and paper were tacky – it looked like it was printed for kids, which is how come I was given it as a present – but actually it was very seriously written and full of stuff like the meanings of flags, how to take the racing line, and thumbnails of different manufacturers and series regulations.
Don’t remember what it was called, just that it had a glossy orange cover with black printing, and an image on the front of a chequered flag being waved for a winning car, so the flag effect covered most of the cover. And among other things, it wrote about Porsche repeatedly coming in to a series or set of regs, totally dominating it, and then getting banned. Classic example cited was the 917.
No memory of what it was called & I don’t have it now. Does anyone else remember it?
@Allan – it’s obviously a generalisation, & a counter argument is possible. Actually, the fact they went into things like CART -without- having the commitment and budget to wipe everyone out is -already- a counter argument. I will just say tho’ re. TAG, that I’ve seen it argued that Porsche just provided a workmanlike, tough but not outstanding base engine to an externally provided spec, and not the turbo installation or electronics. On this argument, someone else (TAG?) did the clever bit & Porsche were basically jobbing engineers. No. I don’t think it sounds likely either, but it stuck in my memory because a) it seemed so unlikely yet b) it was being argued by someone I respect (& no, I don’t remember who it was. Maybe it was all a fevered dream…). I’ve wished I could find out whether there was any truth in it.
Kind if like the messing of the Lotus legend?
Yes. I’m as sentimental about Lotus as most English F1 followers, but I cannot accept any genuine connection between the current Phoenix and Colin’s opus.
It smacks of digging up corpses and parading them around like some idolaters do in Italy.
What I don’t understand is if motorsport is such a distraction from the business of making cars for the public etc etc etc, what is Audi doing at Le Mans, Porsche and Lamborghini in GT racing, SEAT in touring cars, Skoda in rallying, and even VW itself in the Paris-Dakar?
It’s almost like they are rejecting the possibility of F1 out of sheer bloodymindedness. Or being intentionally misdirective…
And all 6 brands generate cash-flow via supply to privateers and non-works teams.
I would think that the answer might have something to do with either the gigantic cost of an F1 team, or not wanting to look bad in front of it’s many customers. It is very much harder to be a top team in F1 than in the lower formulae.
In my comment above I reckon that the best way to have any chance of being seen as a notable F1 team is to buy a top team as Merc did, but then of course that failed. So if you want to go into F1 and currently have a good quality image (which WV do) you are going to risk a lot of public face is it worth it?
Merc have not raised their image in F1 although they may have achieved greater awareness. But they could probably have spent the money on tv advertising to better effect.
Maybe the engines will be the answer, VW could become an engine supplier for the 2014 spec engines, probably not BY 2014 but later as they go into LMS.
I think what Herr Pietsch has been steering clear of is not motorsport in general, but F1. F1 is a very different kettle of fish. Companies can be very successful in other forms of motorsport but find F1 a bridge too far. Look at Peuegot, who came into F1 on a wave of considerable success in sports car racing. Their engine never won a race in F1, indeed was a bit of a joke (a rather explosive joke) in it’s first year. Yamaha never came to much. Did you know Subaru had been in F1? You had to watch carefully, but they were there. Porsche tried in ’91, but were so poor that their partner, Arrows, reverted to Cosworths mid-season. It requires substantial budget and commitment – even if you just provide engines – and outstanding engineering. It’s probably not worth it for many companies – it’d would tie up considerable resources with no guarantee of success.
I think you might be right.
What I’d like to see is more of a spirit of noblesse oblige among the automakers of the world — so that if you have pretensions to being a successful global automobile brand, it is meet, right and your bounden duty to bung a portion of your profits into running a works team at some top level of motorsport (with the largest or most ambitious in F1). We got close to that before the crash a few years ago, but motorsport was quickly classified as a frill that could be cut as soon as things got a little wobbly on the economic front…
I think an F1 program would be more possible in the early-mid 20s. They have their WRC program now and it seems quite unlikely that they would kill it off after just 5 years of running. Because I don’t believe the two could be managed to success at the same time, let alone financial matters.
I cannot disagree with Piech’s logic.
For these past many years, F1 development has had a lot more in common with bleeding edge aerospace than consumer automotive advances.
The bigger question is whether the image of VW is one that is compatible with F1. It makes sense for Ferrari and McLaren (or even more mainstreeam BMW/Mercedes who have tied their corporate brands with driving dynamics) to be involved with the sport. However, how does F1 resonate with the average Golf buyer?
I think F1 needs VW (and its funds) more than VW needs F1.
F1 does not need Volkswagen. It would like to have them. There is a difference. Arguing about the image of Volkswagen is irrelevant because it has brands that would fit into the racing world: Porsche, Lamborghini, Bugatti and AutoUnion being four.
Agreed that VW has brands in its stable, but the most suitable (eg Audi or Lamborghini) are largely committed to other motorsport avenues – Le Mans, GT1/2/3 “gentlemen racers”, DTM, etc. Bugatti, whilst having the history is too niche for F1. Auto Union is a dead brand, now being Audi.
I think the VW rumour is actually a tool of Bernie’s camp. I just don’t see the benefit to their main brand “VW”.
I can’t see how racing in F1 helps sell more Jettas anywhere in the world. Most of the people in the huge developing countries like India and China, where the growth will come, are in the market for basic transportation, not luxury or performance. Leave F1 to the brands that sell to that market. Porsche on the other hand, has had a huge success with an SUV and a four-door, so even the value of a pure performance focus is debatable.
This point (which is basically the same as that of Adrian Newey Jr above) is knocked into a cocked hat by Renault and how much they’ve loved milking the PR of F1 titles won by their team and their engines.
And as Joe points out, there are brands within the VW megalith which more readily lend themselves to sports performance.
Personally, I agree with VeeDub’s stance, the technical justification just isn’t there for the wider VW business to gain anything but PR.
That said, the same is arguably true of the whole Bugatti Veyron project which, if memory serves, involved taking something like a 4M€ loss per car sold when development budget and so on is taken into account.
Interesting, because what FIA were hoping for was that the 2014 engine regulations would attract more automobile manufacturers because they would place greater emphasis on engine and energy recovery technology that would have application in the real world – but the manufacturers don’t seem to be interested in coming to the party.
These are not easy economic times. We may see more interest when the economy picks up and the new formula appears. There may also be more interest when the sport becomes a little more corporate.
Generally speaking, what do you Joe think, if there will be only 3 engine suppliers in 2014 (Renault, Mercedes, Ferrari) in F1? Do think someone will still come? I don’t believe in PURE…
PURE suspended their engine project in late July for lack of finance.
That does not mean that it is dead.
True, I hope they can get it together, as I always hope the small guys can succeed. Hart was a great example of how to build engines on a tiny budget; the monoblock turbo actually was pretty good for horsepower, except it couldn’t be fully stressed, was too tall, and needed development time and money. Anyway, good luck to Craig.
@Bobster
But the FIA’s engine regulations were sidelined by the teams, just as the teams sidelined the progressive FIA chassis regulations too.
The teams are holding back the natural development of F1, by their obsession with refinement over innovation.
Shirely the tech regs for 2014 had been agreed and published a long time back. My downloaded copy is from 20/07/11. If these are voided then all teams must agree a new set of tech regs and the likelihood of winning the lottery is somewhat greater than that.
Still, I suppose it would give the opportunity to close some glaring loopholes in them as currently written.
I don’t think it’s about refinement over innovation, it’s about costs and about production cycles. Look at the double diffuser…. once they’d agreed that it was going they got rid of it not the next year, but the year after. Why? Because they all already had cars with an aero package including a double diffuser well under way, and scrapping the device there and then would mean back to the drawing board for all of them. Same with the ugly noses they have this year. It’s a compromise so that they can evolve a car from last year’s tub instead of having to tear everything up and start again. Remember that they start on “next year’s” car fairly early in the current year. By not having to start again they save the time and money already put in. Some things they can leave out easily enough (f-duct) but others require substantial redesigns (double diffuser) and that costs them money.
An entry into F1 for VW will in my opinion do their image more harm than good. At present they have a very strong reputation for building reliable dependable family vehicles, though they have and do produce the odd hot-hatch, they have not based their reputation on their performance models.
If they do go into F1, it is very likely they will face the same problems other manufacturers, such as Jaguar, Toyota, BMW and (maybe to a lesser extent) Mercedes have had to deal with. It is in no way going to enhance their reputation plodding around in the mid-field fighting for minor points places.
As Joe pointed out above, VW has several brands that would fit into F1. Audi, if they decide to expand from the le man’s program. Bugatti, would be a natural choice as it is a high-end super car manufacturer. Lamborghini would make some sense, but it would immediately be compared to Ferrari.
Overall, I don’t think that it will happen, and if it does it will be many years before it does.
You raise a good point. Whilst the Mercedes AMG team sell a lot of Schumacher t-shirts and provide a good corporate box, is coming mid-field as a team a good outcome for their brand? Or would they be better off with the Renault strategy?
F1 = Publicity, that’s what may entice VW into F1 more than anything else.