The team was “absolutely not for sale,” according to Brown, the CEO of McLaren Racing, who acknowledged in January that “very preliminary negotiations with Volkswagen had taken place.
Four months later, when questioned once more following the confirmation of the Audi and Porsche entries, Brown reaffirmed that the McLaren name would not be removed from Formula 1.
“We spoke with Audi, but we are not up for sale. We have a strong commitment to the future, and our performance on the track is excellent.
“Shareholders are investing a sizable amount of money to provide our team with the tools they need to reclaim the lead, and commercially, things are going pretty well. The team has excellent morale. The racing team is not something we are interested in selling.
The McLaren F1 team. We will continue to be that, and we will continue to own the racing team.
“We would insist on maintaining ownership of the racing team as part of any cooperation agreement. There isn’t a conversation to be held if somebody wants one that is different from that.
Brown did not rule out the possibility that McLaren may switch to a new engine manufacturer in 2026 in place of their Mercedes engine.
But [team principal] Andreas [Seidl] is free to choose the power unit he wants at the back of the race car, he said. “We won’t explore a buyout of McLaren.
In This Article...
Audi’s purchase of McLaren: why?
According to the most recent information, Audi approached Mumtalakat, the sovereign wealth fund of the Iranian government, and made an initial offer of 450 million dollars to purchase McLaren’s F1 division. But in order for the German brand to have access to the most important race in the industry, that amount has since climbed to over 650 million.
Who is the current McLaren owner?
The Bahrain Mumtalakat Holding Company, the sovereign wealth fund for the Kingdom of Bahrain, is now the McLaren Group’s largest shareholder. In other words, McLaren is still a publicly traded company, but its primary owners are the Bahraini royal family.
Will Audi purchase F1?
Porsche and Audi will both compete in Formula 1, according to Herbert Diess, CEO of parent company Volkswagen Group.
Diess announced that the group’s Porsche and Audi brands will both participate in the sport during an online “Dialogue with Diess” question-and-answer session. He said, “You just run out of reasons [not to join F1].
The decision to enter F1 divided the Volkswagen Group board of directors, according to Diess, who also disclosed that the board ultimately decided to approve the move since it will generate more money than it will cost.
Who now owns Bugatti?
(CNN)Rimac Group, a Croatian manufacturer of high-end electric supercars that also owns Bugatti, revealed that it has secured 500 million, or roughly $536 million in additional financing. Porsche, which currently owns nearly a quarter of the business, is one of the participants in the new financing round.
In 2009, Rimac Automobili was established with the purpose of building electric supercars with high horsepower. The business also entered into agreements to develop and produce high-performance electric drive components for high-end cars with other automakers like Aston Martin and Sweden’s Koenigsegg.
Last year, the corporation divided its supercar manufacturing and EV component businesses, with Rimac Group managing both of the new businesses. In addition, Rimac’s supercar division acquired Bugatti, which was separated from the Volkswagen Group. Rimac controls the majority of the newly established Bugatti Rimac, although Porsche, which is controlled by Volkswagen and owns the aforementioned portion of the Rimac Group as a whole, owns 45 percent of Bugatti Rimac. The Rimac Group continues to be the only owner of the EV component industry.
Goldman Sachs and SoftBank took the lead in the most recent funding round. InvestIndustrial, a significant investor in Rimac already, took part in this latest round of financing as well. According to the company, Mate Rimac, the 34-year-old founder of Rimac, continues to be the company’s largest shareholder. According to Mate Rimac, this is the largest single investment round Rimac has ever received. According to Rimac, that suggests a total corporate valuation of $2 billion.
Rimac Technologies, a completely owned part of Rimac Group, continues to provide other businesses with important electric car components, such as fully functional chassis, electric motors, and hybrid and electric vehicle batteries. Among others, it has collaborated with Automobili Pininfarina and Aston Martin.
Is Audi forming a Formula One team?
Initial negotiations with McLaren came to an early stalemate, complicating Audi’s plans to enter Formula 1 in 2026 with its own engine and a team bearing its name. The Volkswagen Group has virtually confirmed a first-time Audi F1 project, which is still pending final approval.
Will McLaren be sold?
On September 12, 2017, a McLaren 720S is put together on the production floor of the McLaren Automotive Production Centre in Woking, Britain. Chris J. Ratcliffe for Reuters
The declarations came in response to an earlier Monday story from the automotive journal Autocar that claimed an acquisition deal had been agreed between Audi and McLaren.
“The McLaren Group is aware of a press report that the company has been acquired by Audi. Since this is completely false, McLaren is requesting that the article be taken down “Without specifically addressing whether talks with Audi were still underway, a company representative stated.
The McLaren Group’s ownership structure hasn’t changed, they claimed, but the company’s technology approach has always required continual conversations and engagement with pertinent partners and suppliers, including other automakers.
In addition to Lamborghini, which Audi has owned since 1998, the purchase of the automaker would give the company access to a second supercar.
Audi was said to be particularly interested in the Formula 1 sector, according to a Sunday article in the German daily Automobilwoche.
Like other automakers, McLaren is struggling to electrify its lineup without sacrificing performance.
However, a partnership with Audi would provide it with a more secure financial foundation to facilitate the switch to electric vehicles, which rivals like Bentley, a division of Volkswagen, or Jaguar Land Rover (TAMO.NS), a division of Tata Motors Ltd., can rely on, can help.
In the first half of 2021, the carmakerwhich was founded in 2010 and is 42% owned by Bahrain’s sovereign wealth fund Mumtalakatpartially recovered from a revenue decline brought on by the pandemic, but it nonetheless experienced an operational loss of 12.4 million pounds ($16.65 million).
Reporting by Christina Amann, Riham Alkousaa, Saeed Azhar, and Victoria Waldersee; editing by Bernadette Baum and Riham Alkousaa.
McLaren is it owned by Mercedes?
Mercedes-Benz used to collaborate with McLaren, but it no longer has any ownership stake in the company. Back in the day, these two prestigious automakers collaborated to create the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren. Mercedes had 11% of the company at the time. When the brand sold its remaining shares, it separated from the other McLaren Group shareholders.
Why doesn’t Audi field a Formula One team?
All of the major exotic vehicle manufacturers have competed in F1 or, at the absolute least, provided engines for the sport throughout its history.
The F1 grid has formerly featured vehicles with the names Aston Martin, Maserati, Bugatti, Alfa Romeo, Porsche, Lamborghini, Lotus, Jaguar, and Mercedes Benz. You now have a real who’s who of the automotive industry, including the enduring Ferrari and contemporary automotive behemoths Honda, Renault, and Toyota.
Despite its long history and popularity, there are surprisingly few names from the real world of motorsport on the roster of teams competing in F1 today.
The only car brands you can actually buy are Ferrari, Mercedes, Renault, and, to a lesser extent, McLaren. The two Lotus teams who absurdly compete this year have no connection to the British sports car manufacturer of the same name (owned by Malaysia).
The concentration of ownership of these well-known names is one of the main issues. They used to be powerful, independent businesses, but today they are just branches on the conglomerate tree.
For instance, Fiat is the owner of Maserati, Alfa Romeo, Lancia, and Ferrari. Audi, Bugatti, Bentley, and Lamborghini are all under Porsche control at Volkswagen.
Where are Peugeot or BMW? Why are Japanese firms no longer in a position to compete? Why couldn’t one of the Porsche stable’s brands stand in for the group?
Audi has developed a solution. They have revealed their cards after years of tease teasers about an F1 effort.
Audi believes that F1 is unimportant. Audi’s director of racing, Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich, defends the harsh decision.
The road has no bearing on this. Audi has long participated in motorsports that our customers care about, like rallying and touring cars, which helped develop the quattro, FSI, and TFSI systems that are now included in our road cars.
This is the reason we rejected F1 in 1999. Instead, we made the decision to compete in the world’s biggest race. We chose Le Mans.
They are combative words. However, the argument has some merit given the number of passenger car manufacturers competing alongside Audi (11 in all) at Le Mans events.
That didn’t prevent Audi from planning an extravagant celebration in Singapore to coincide with the F1 race, though.
As brutal as Dr Ulrich’s assessment is, he gets the Ban Ki Moon award for diplomacy compared to the blunt assessment of F1 offered up by Porsche CEO Matthias Mueller who declared that it was “not interesting and “too expensive.”
Of course, the two erudite men omit to mention that F1 is an absurdly challenging sport to master.
Why risk it all to be an afterthought in a world that is so different from your own when you’re the big fish in Le Mans racing, as is the case with Audi, or when you have many series exclusively dedicated to your brand, as does Porsche?
You know you’re not in Kansas anymore when racing behemoths like Mercedes and Ferrari attend a class from an energy drink manufacturer.
That, though, is the appeal. F1 should be unpredictable and innovative; it shouldn’t only be about racing road cars.
That is not to claim that Formula One is a very inventive sport. The idea that F1 has significantly advanced the automotive industry is widespread, but it doesn’t hold up to thorough examination.
F1 is better at extending existing technologies than it is at inventing new ones, leaving aside traction control and monocoque construction. While improvements in this field certainly have an impact on the passenger market, they don’t often garner the same attention as high-profile innovations like airbags.
The Olympics wouldn’t exist if sport were exclusively about practical applications, though. It wouldn’t be fun to see Usain Bolt shatter world records; we’d rather to watch police officers take out criminals.
Although Audi would be a great addition, F1 is unique and different, and the sport will continue to exist without them. In addition, a number of well-known past participants are already lined up to participate in the 2014 engine upgrades, joining first-timers Volkswagen and General Motors.
F1 is still without a doubt the best series, even though the Le Mans 24-hour may be the world’s best auto race (although the people of Monaco may disagree).
Will Lamborghini enter the F1?
A renowned supercar manufacturer called Lamborghini is renowned for creating some of the world’s most unusual and sought-after automobiles. Despite its widespread appeal, Lamborghini rarely makes news for entering Formula 1.
Lamborghini probably won’t make a move to F1 anytime soon. Early in the 1990s, Lamborghini briefly participated in Formula One as an engine supplier, but they never became an official team. The Volkswagen group, which owns Lamborghini, ultimately determines whether or not the company will participate in the sport.
When joining as a new team, it might be challenging to stay up with the other teams due to the fierce competition in Formula One. Additionally, joining Formula 1 is not an easy procedure, which we shall go into more depth about below.
Will BMW compete in Formula One?
Numerous automakers will join the fray as the Formula 1 racing championship gains in popularity. In 2026, Audi and Porsche will make their Formula 1 debuts, but BMW has largely remained silent. Frank Van Meel, the head of BMW M, stated in an interview today that the Munich-based automaker has no plans to compete in Formula 1.
“Van Meel was adamant that we had no intentions to compete in Formula 1. The forthcoming LMDh project is where the business continues to concentrate its motorsport efforts. “It’s crucial for us that the [electrification] narrative of transformation is accepted as soon as feasible. The regulations pertaining to electrification are still being discussed in Formula 1. Thus, everything was crystal plain to us. Van Meel suggests moving more quickly into the electrification section.
Focus on LMDh (GTP)
And LMDh offers the ideal chance to evaluate BMW M’s road technology in a racing environment. According to Van Meel, a variation of the V8 plug-in hybrid powerplant recently unveiled by the BMW XM and probably to be utilized in the upcoming BMW M5 G90 would be used in the LMDh vehicles. Therefore, BMW Motorsport will concentrate on Le Mans Daytona Hybrid (LMDh), also known as IMSA GTP more recently.
In June 2021, BMW announced that it would create a Le Mans Daytona hybrid prototype and begin racing it in 2023. A few months later, the head of the motorsport division announced that the V12 LMR’s spiritual replacement will not compete in the 2023 24 Hours of Le Mans. The good news is that it’s possible that the LMDh machine will appear at the endurance event the following year.
The ideal year to test the LMDh prototype on France’s renowned Circuit de la Sarthe is 2024. It would mark the victory at Le Mans in 1999 by the V12 LMR’s 25th anniversary. BMW continues to be tight-lipped on the race car, although its hybrid powertrain won’t have more than 500 kilowatts to comply with regulations (670.5 horsepower). V6 combustion engines will be used by Toyota, Peugeot, and Peugeot while a V8 with two turbochargers will be used by Porsche. The larger engine could be used by Audi, and Lamborghini should soon finalize its LMDh entry for 2024.
BMW is renowned for continuously assessing its motorsport ambitions and is not hesitant to immediately sever relations if the racing interest doesn’t correspond with the company aims and goals. So it’s reasonable to suppose that the M CEO will give the storied racing series another look if Formula 1 moves more toward electricity in the future.
In Formula One, who will Porsche replace?
Porsche and Audi, which are owned by Volkswagen, have long been linked to Formula 1. Now that it’s official, it’s clear that the big investment will result in a profit.
Herbert Diess, the CEO of VW, announced on Monday that when technical restrictions pertaining to the that promote energy efficiency take effect, the two luxury brands will join the top international racing league. Diess noted, “You need a regulation change to enter Formula 1; otherwise, a technology window will not open up.
Volkswagen’s actions will probably take one of two forms: first, Porsche will likely collaborate with Oracle Red Bull Racing to take Honda’s place as the engine supplier. The Japanese manufacturer will still provide support for the 2022 season, but the racing team had to launch Red Bull Powertrains, a section dedicated to power units.
Although the supercar manufacturer has found better financial footing thanks to a Saudi equity investment of 50 million ($758 million U.S.), the play with Audi may involve buying McLaren. Approximately 500 million euros ($556.3 million U.S.) is what Audi apparently has to offer for McLaren.
Although there were reportedly “divisions at an event regarding admission into F1 in Wolfsburg, where Volkswagen is based, Diess ultimately remarked, “You just run out of arguments, “for not enlisting.