In a spectacular effort to paddle against the flow of manufacturers haemorrhaging out of the sport, Volkswagen have said that they are considering entering Formula One as an engine supplier from the 2012 season onwards.
During the 'manufacturer era' in F1, that has spectacularly ended recently with the withdrawals of Honda, BMW and Toyota, and the continued shakiness of Renault, VW were the major motoring player that were missing from the grid, and have been linked with speculation about entering before.
Currently, VW's motorsport efforts are limited to their ridiculously successful Le Mans programme under the Audi banner and their World Touring Car Championship expliots under the SEAT brand, but with new rules on engine specifications set to be introduced in 2012, Hans-Joachim Stuck, a 'representative' of the German company, has said that they would be tempted to enter F1, if the changes made are attractive to them.
Stuck told Autosport that the company would not be interested in a BMW-style 'partnership' with one team, after the company was linked with a tie-in with Red Bull a while ago, but would be tempted by the idea of supplying engines to a number of different teams.
"If you're the world's largest manufacturer is natural that we're thinking about [Formula 1], but not before 2012," Stuck explained.
"We're looking for innovative things, and Formula 1 is the pinnacle of motorsport. Two years ago there was some talk that Volkswagen is going to buy the Red Bull F1 team, which we didn't need to buy. Why should we stick with one team if we can give our engines to more teams?
"If you buy Red Bull and Adrian Newey wants to go flying or fishing, the team is not successful any more. Look at BMW. They bought this multi-million dollar wind tunnel and a supercomputer and they now close the doors. Building an engine and providing it to a team is the best way."
Despite the new lower-cost era of F1, with smaller teams entering the sport and limiting engine regulations making the sport unattractive for many manufacturers, with the big companies attempting a coup in the summer over the now-abandoned budget cap rules, Stuck said that the bigger grids and lower costs actually make the sport more appealing to VW, rather than less.
"Now it's amazing; Formula 1 goes the right way," Stuck grinned insanely, "Many manufacturers have pulled out, which I think is a great deal, because we have manufacturers that we don't know for how long they will do it.
"They should become engine manufacturers and then lease the engine, sell the engine or give it to somebody. Then you lose all the hassle with teams, wind tunnels, engineers, you know.
"It's like Formula 1 in my days. We had March, we had Lotus, and we had Ford engines. Then Renault came in as engine manufacturer, with a formidable engine. This was perfect."
He added: "I followed Formula 1 for the last seven years with BMW and I always asked myself on the grid, with only 20 cars, what if we could have 30 cars? Now we're getting back to this.
"We have three more teams next year, 26 cars, and by having a global engine, which is good in cost and reliable, we can have 30 cars on the grid."
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