F1 Rumor: Audi's F1 future placed in doubt over VW cost-cutting

As we reported yesterday, all the VW companies (including Audi) are losing their shirts on Electric Vehicles (EVs) and a big cost-cutting measure is underway before they bleed anymore red-ink.

F1 pundit Joe Saward reckons Audi could have a rough entry to F1 due to them experiencing financial strain. In his latest, Green Notebook, talked about how the German company’s parent company was taking drastic measures to cut costs, one of which could be entering the top-tier single-seater motorsport.

Back in 2022, Audi announced that they would be acquiring the Sauber F1 team and enter F1 in 2026, when FIA will introduce new technical regulations, including new power units. The German giants gradually started acquiring the Swiss team by taking a small stake every year. Before 2026, they are planning to completely take over the team and enter F1.

Recently, however, reports emerged that Volkswagen, the parent company of Audi, will start closing factories and laying off workers as part of their cost-cutting plan. The company is aiming for a huge $10,000,000,000 worth of savings in the near future.

Saward wrote, “One can speculate that Gernot Dollner, the CEO of Audi AG, might soon start to argue that it would be better to sell the F1 team (at a profit) and get out of the game before the ventilation and the excrement get together. Blaming the economy is a good way for car companies to bail out of F1 because people cannot then say that a company ran away because it was not doing a great job. If one looks back at the financial crisis of 2008 this proved to be a nice easy way for several not very successful car companies to get out of F1.”

Whether Audi decides to sell the team (for a profit) is just speculation at this time, but it would open the door for another potential Andretti-Cadillac buying opportunity. However, a very pissed off Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei has essentially said over my dead body for Andretti to ever have an F1 team.