Audi thought to be buying McLaren, Porsche could enter as engine supplier to Red Bull
Audi and Porsche are likely to be given the green light to enter Formula One next week, according to reports.
The Reuters news agency quoted a source within VW Group, parent company of both Audi and Porsche, who said the two brands are keen to enter the sport, and a decision will be made next week following a meeting of the board.
“We will hopefully be able to communicate our intention to enter into Formula One then,” the source is reported to have said. They added that there was a “good chance” the brands’ move into the sport would be approved.
While no-one from VW Group, Audi or Porsche have publicly commented on any potential deals, they are known to have been in the works for some time. McLaren boss Zak Brown (above) said last year that both his company and Audi had been in partnership discussions, and Audi is expected to offer around £422m to buy the McLaren team, according to Business Insider.
The reports suggest Porsche will partner with the Red Bull team from 2026, possibly as an engine supplier, following the departure of Honda from F1. The Japanese company had supplied power units to both Red Bull and Alpha Tauri, though Red Bull acquired the hardware and intellectual property and this year an evolution of the 2021 Honda system is branded Red Bull Powertrains.
Honda has said it will continue providing technical support to Red Bull until the end of the 2025 season, after which new engines running synthetic “e-fuel” are expected. This is an area in which Porsche has been investing heavily in recent years.
The deal between Porsche and Red Bull is said to have been driven primarily by Helmut Marko, a former racing driver who now works as an adviser to Red Bull’s racing teams, along with fellow Austrian Fritz Enzinger, head of motorsport at the Volkswagen Group.
It is thought it was contingent on F1 following through on its plans to switch to e-fuel from 2026, a move that has now been confirmed.
Volkswagen and Red Bull previously collaborated when Red Bull was a major sponsor of Volkswagen’s World Rally Championship team.
Porsche’s entry would mark a return after a long absence from the sport. The company first took part in F1 in 1961, and in 1962 won its only race as a constructor when the sleek, silver 804 took that year’s French Grand Prix in the hands of Dan Gurney (above).
Porsche withdrew from F1 at the end of the 1962 season due to the prohibitive cost of competition, not returning until 1983, though then only as an engine supplier. It produced TAG-badged V6 turbo engines for the McLaren, which powered the team to constructors’ championship titles in 1984 and 1985, and helped Alain Prost to the top of the drivers’ championship in 1986.
Following another departure in 1987, Porsche again returned in 1991 supplying engines to the Arrows team. These V12 motors were a modification of the TAG V6s used in the McLarens, but this time proved too heavy, too slow and too unreliable. Porsche once again withdrew from F1 and hasn’t been involved since.
Audi has never taken part in F1, though both it and Porsche have had enormous success in nearly all other forms of motorsport, including endurance racing, Formula E and even rallying. Combined, Porsche and Audi cars have won the 24 Hours of Le Mans race a total of 32 times.
Porsche’s involvement with synthetic fuels has seen it enter a partnership with a number of energy companies to construct a plant in Chile creating “green hydrogen” using wind power, extracting carbon from the atmosphere and combining both to create a synthetic hydrocarbon that can be used in an internal combustion engine in place of petrol.
The company says that synthetic e-fuels will allow owners to keep classic cars on the road for longer (70% of the Porsches ever made are said to be still running) and Porsche’s involvement with Red Bull as an engine supplier may be an indication of how seriously the company is taking the future of synthetic fuels as a lower carbon alternative to petrol.
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