The battle to win McLaren is heating up.
Audi wants to go all-in on McLaren Cars, McLaren Racing and Formula 1, while BMW wants to cooperate again with its former partner – and let’s not forget Porsche is beginning to think and act independently too.
The powers that be in Wolfsburg are watching this clash of egos and the overboarding frenzy of male fantasies with a mix of rapture, disbelief and scare.
The car industry is still a man’s world, and motor racing is the inner sanctum of this male domain. Even die-hard petrolheads who acknowledge that the future is electric carry the incurable speed and competition virus.
That’s people like; Markus Duesmann, CEO of Audi, Frank van Meel, director of the BMW M division, and Thomas Laudenbach, the man in charge of Porsche Motorsport. Or even messieurs Zak Brown and Andreas Seidl from McLaren, and Ola Källenius from Mercedes-Benz – Mr Electric Only, who is also one of the most prominent F1 supporters.
Without even talking to each other, all protagonists, sponsors and organisers came recently to the unanimous conclusion that after years of televised boredom, king class motor racing is suddenly a red hot property again. Not virtual-reality crazy like Formula E, but similar to Moto GP nail-bitingly exciting.
On March 23, a McLaren delegation paid a visit to BMW. The sole item on the agenda was a memorandum of understanding with regard to a jointly developed electric sports car architecture. Sounds significant, but may be a dead end. After all, McLaren Racing and McLaren Cars are separate entities, and the only strings that matter are pulled by the sheiks from Bahrain who own the biggest chunk of shares.
If Mumtalakat strikes a deal with Audi, this would automatically void every third-party arrangement. Having said that, BMW and McLaren have been very close on-and-off ever since the P1, the Le Mans victory and the mid-engined sports car project discussed by Mike Flewitt and Harald Krüger.
While the Bavarians have yet to sign off a new halo car, the Brits went ahead with Artura – a V6 hybrid coupé, the DNA of which may not stretch deep enough into the world of electrification. Since the New Class under development by BMW does not include a proper sports car, it did not come as surprise that the old buddies started talking again.
On April 4, a letter of intent composed by Audi was due to arrive at the HQ of the main shareholders in Manama. It allegedly details Ingolstadt’s offer to buy the McLaren Group. In a parallel move, the VW Group board of directors will meet this month to discuss the planned F1 entry by Porsche and Audi. Originally, Wolfsburg wanted to see the definitive regulations which apply from the beginning of the 2026 season, but since the final draft was delayed until the end of June, an earlier commitment cannot be ruled out.
While McLaren Racing is apparently in tip-top shape, the automotive division is reportedly strapped for cash. According to the Woking grapevine, McLaren Cars is valued at between £1 billion and £1.75 bn, but the higher number is pegged on between 4000 and 5000 sold cars per annum – which is a far cry from the status quo.
Recent media coverage suggests that the Germans offered initially only €450 million, a sum which was recently hiked to €650m, sources say. The size of the allegedly significant debt burden and the related pay-off scheme is unclear.
The Bahrain state holding is said to have four weeks to reply to the offer. If it accepts, due diligence is the next step. Audi is of course keeping mum about the whole business, but analysts reckon the strict cost cap in F1 and the substantial direct and indirect revenues should amortise the investment in five to seven years.
Markus Duesmann is determined to develop his own drivetrain, which would at McLaren replace the Mercedes power unit. Porsche originally intended to share the R&D work with its German partner, but since a carryover Audi system would not go well with the brand image, Weissach is now inclined to do its own thing with a little help from Red Bull.
Since the new legislation calls, among other things, for a 50 per cent-plus electric energy split and for green fuels, the emphasis of all e-tech wizards is on battery management, minimum degradation despite rapidly alternating charge and discharge cycles, and state-of-the-art short-term power storage.
BMW is primarily interested in an advanced sports car co-operation with McLaren. But F1 these days is an alien subject to the board of directors and the majority shareholders.
Audi on the other hand wants all or nothing. While McLaren entertained in the past a confusing array of essentially one and the same sports car matrix, the Germans plan to adapt the Lamborghini tech pattern and cycle plan to their pending UK acquisition.
There will, in other words, be; at least one SUV, one front-engined 2+2-seater, one sports car in coupé and spyder guise – as well as a supercar followed by a small-volume hypercar. While Audi and Bentley will cater for the sports-luxury segment, Lamborghini, McLaren and Ducati would form the newly created performance group.
This entity takes aim at Ferrari, Maserati and AMG-Aston Martin, but it is by definition also bound to rival Porsche. Ferdinand Piech would have loved this approach, but his successors may be less comfortable with the rapid rise of McLaren.
To secure a fallback proposition, Audi put out its feelers several months ago in the direction of Williams, where Jost Capito, formerly the head of VW Motorsport, is in charge.
Only three weeks ago, Aston Martin made an informal surprise move which brought a third option to the Ingolstadt table even before the finer details have emerged. We cannot confirm that Lawrence Stroll and Markus Duesmann have actually met, but we heard from two independent sources that Aston is looking for a F1 partner for 2026 and beyond.
What about Mercedes, you ask? Well, while Mercedes owns only a thin slice of the Aston cake, Mr Stroll is believed to prefer an even more committed backer, both for his racing team and, eventually, also for the slowly recovering car division.
What sounds like a potential exit scenario may in fact be no more than a storm in tea cup. Because at the end the day, the number one German premium brand would surely pull out all the stops to prevent Audi from taking Gaydon – lock, stock and barrel.
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