Before even taking off (no pun intended), the Audi F1 program should be taken over by Qatar, shareholder of the Volkswagen group: an announcement could take place on the sidelines of the Grand Prix in Doha.
Since the announcement of the arrival of the Ingolstadt brand in F1, management has evolved within the Volkswagen group, first of all with the premature ousting of Audi CEO Markus Duesmann who had enabled the successful completion of the project.
It was in fact he who poached Andreas Seidl, then working at McLaren, the two men having been close since their collaboration at the time of the defunct BMW F1 team, already built at the time around Sauber.
Management turnaround
The German manager had asked for more resources from Thomas Hoffmann, the technical director of Audi. Not obtaining them, he then gave up by bowing out to make way for Mattia Binotto, former team principal of Scuderia Ferrari, appointed on the advice of his friend Stefano Domenicali, the CEO of Formula 1.
Successor to Markus Duesmann at the head of the brand with the rings, Gernot Döllner would on the other hand be much less motivated by Formula 1 and visibly, internally in Ingolstadt, it is indicated that he wishes to put an end to the takeover of Sauber because he wants to devote more resources for production in a tense context of a plummeting market for electric vehicle sales.
Announcement this weekend in Qatar?
Behind the scenes, there are reports of a takeover of the entire project by Qatar through the QSI investment fund which could be formalized this weekend in Doha where the penultimate Grand Prix of the season will take place. will take place on the Losail circuit. A commitment that comes against a backdrop of rivalry with its neighbors in Abu Dhabi, who recently made a takeover bid for McLaren Automotive (the group's automotive branch), and Saudi Arabia, which are omnipresent on the motorsport front.
A major shareholder in the Volkswagen group, the parent company of Audi, Qatar has increased its presence in major sporting competitions such as the Football World Cup and its players, like its control over PSG. Let's hope that the Audi F1 program will be more successful than the Parisian football adventure, but nothing is less certain…
