[WRC] News & rumours (part IV) 2016

[Simmi]

There may be a difference between Audi and VW cases. Can’t remember any Audi previous declaration of their LeMans engagement under the future 2018/21 regs, while VW confirmed a long time ago their 2017/19 WRC commitment. Hopefully, this is just an anticipation of Audi’s decision to choose FE instead of LM/WEC.

No unfortunately there is a misconception that Audi chose FE over WEC which was brought about by the press release. Effectively Audi trying to save a bit of face and imply they are remaining in global motorsport. The decision for them to support Formula E was made before and independently of the WEC exit. They even put out a press release weeks ago, explaining the move to FE would not have any impact on Audi's current motorsport programmes. The FE stuff is absolutely tiny in comparison to the Le Mans effort. Really it's just a branding exercise.

The decision to quit the WEC was made completely at boardroom level. Same as VW/WRC will be. The only thing that is different here is the fact that Audi had inter-brand competition in Porsche. That's something VW don't have in the WRC.

Clearly no one at VW Motorsport had any clue this was coming until very recently. It looks really bad. The fact they've been developing this new car for 18 months or whatever it's been really doesn't matter with decisions like this.


The only positive we can draw is that the WRC can take this blow on the chin and stay standing in the knowledge it still has 3.5 manufacturers in the series next year and a new set of exciting regs.

Tanak, Lappi, Ostberg, Evans, whoever... better have signed those contracts already otherwise they will be getting ripped up...