Two of Germanys top automakers realign their respective motorsport strategies – Top Speed

BMW Motorsport Will no longer be in Formula E after 2020-2021 season

BMW has become the second big-name manufacturer to quit the Formula E World Championship in just two days following a lackadaisical announcement that offers some clue as to why the board in Munich has decided to follow Audi through the open door come the end of the next season. As the worlds most prestigious EV-only racing series, Formula E has thus lost two big players that have been supporting the series ever since its debut season all the way back in 2014.

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2020, BMW ought to have told us just how happy it is that its driver, 23-year old Maximilian Guenther, topped the timesheets during last weekends Formula E pre-season test days held at Valencia, in Spain. There, Guenther, who drives for the BMW i Andretti Motorsport team, set the pace during the final day of proceedings indicating that BMW may be a force to be reckoned with in the seventh season of Formula E thats set to kick-off with the Santiago ePrix in mid-January.

Instead, BMW Motorsport effectively told us that season seven will be the brands last, with the factory program that backs the American Andretti Autosport operation set to end after just three seasons. The racing arm of the Bavarian company underlines that, "as a partner from the word go, BMW has been instrumental in the success of Formula E." However, "when it comes to the development of e-drivetrains, BMW Group has essentially exhausted the opportunities for this form of technology transfer in the competitive environment of Formula E."

The statement goes on to say that "the strategic focus of BMW Group is shifting within the field of e-mobility," meaning that the automaker, "will now concentrate on a model offensive and series production in large quantities with the fifth-generation BMW E-drives." In an additional press release, BMW is adamant that the plan is, "to have put one million electric vehicles on the roads by the end of 2021. The goal is to increase this figure to seven million by 2030, of which two-thirds will be fully-electric." Key to this onslaught are models such as the upcoming BMW iX, previewed by the BMW Vision iNext Concept Car of 2018 and, more recently, by the iX prototype.

BMW began its collaboration with the Formula E World Championship six years ago but not as an entrant or chassis manufacturer. Instead, BMW provided the entire fleet of safety and officials cars that appeared during each and every Formula E weekend, finally making the step into the arena ahead of the 2017-2018 season when it became a key technical partner of Andretti Autosport. Then, from the 2018-2019 season onwards, the Andretti Autosport team morphed into the official BMW Formula E team under the BMW i Andretti Motorsport moniker. The move coincided with the introduction of the second-generation Formula E cars, BMWs contender being the iFE.18 driven by Antonio Felix da Costa and then-newcomer Alex Sims.

Thus far, BMW has competed in 24 races as a factory team scoring four victories, four pole positions, and nine additional podiums.

With the iFE.21 model that features a BMW-developed drivetrain, BMW aims to add to that tally of wins and podium finishes in season seven when Guenther will be joined by Jake Dennis who has replaced Alex Sims.

In recent times, Volkswagen has made waves by smashing the all-time Pikes Peak International Hill Climb record with the awe-inspiring ID.R prototype. Powered by two electric motors that combine to deliver 671 horsepower and 479 pound-feet of torque, the ID.R also starred on the Nuerburgring-Nordschleife where it snatched the record for the fastest-ever EV in effortless fashion.

That all took place during the summer of 2019 (including re-writing the Goodwood Hill Climb record) and we all thought that the ID.R is the sign of things to come in two different areas. First of all, its a sign of things to come on the street since Volkswagen has spent billions to make sure that its ID family of electric models (that includes stuff like the ID.3, ID.4, and many, many more) will rule the world. Moreover, we believed that its also a sign of things to come on the worlds race tracks and - why not? - on the rally stages following Volkswagens announcement that it leaves ICE-powered racing behind.

The news, that arrived last year, basically signaled the end of the road for the highly successful Volkswagen Golf GTI TCR that was originally meant to live on through a successor supposedly built to the upcoming set of TCR rules. Instead, the TCR race cars production has ceased at the end of 2019 meaning all the cars youve seen in the 2020 season of GT World Challenge America and in the Michelin Pilot Challenge arent that new. Moreover, Volkswagen also shelved a new Polo GTi R5 rally car although it pledged its support towards all of the privateers still running the current iteration of the rally car.

At the time, we understood that "Volkswagen Motorsports customer sport program will be electrified," and that "the first stage will involve different disciplines, platforms and vehicle types being examined and evaluated." The factory team too was supposed to undertake at least some EV racing programs because, as Volkswagen Motorsport boss Sven Smeets put it, racing represents "a convincing marketing platform to inspire people even more towards electric mobility."

Apparently, views on the subject have shifted in the past 12 months and, now, the suits up in Wolfsburg have canned the entire motorsport arm of VW. The decision has been made, according to Chief Development Officer of the VW brand Frank Welsch, as "part of the companys realignment," in a bid to become "the leading supplier in sustainable electric mobility." To achieve its lofty goals, VW decided that it needed all hands on deck in the production EV department which means that the 169 employees that are currently part of the motorsport program will be integrated into various areas of road car development.

"The deep technical expertise of the employees as well as the gained know-how from the ID.R project will thus remain in the company and will help us to bring further efficient models of the ID family onto the road," Welsch added. Does this mean Volkswagens five-decade-long relationship with the world of racing will never be rekindled in the future? Thats hard to tell at the moment but we guess Volkswagen wont be back racing any of its programs until the entire ID family is firing on all cylinders and the Group as a whole is happy with the figures that its EVs return.

Looking back, Volkswagen traces its racing roots all the way back to the days of Formula Vee (short for Formula Volkswagen) in the 60s and 70s. At the time, the entry-level single-seaters were utilizing pre-1963 VW Beetle running gear held in place by a purpose-built tube frame chassis. At a price tag of about $15,000 to $20,000, Formula Vee remains arguably the cheapest open-wheel formula in the world and thats why, over the decades, it acted as the launching pad for the careers of many a famous racing drivers including Niki Lauda, Emerson Fittipaldi, Nelson Piquet, and Keke Rosberg - all of whom have gone on to become F1 champions.

Both BMW and Volkswagen have pinpointed their desire to focus more on their electric car divisions as the main reason behind their collective change of heart towards racing. Having said that, fans are now hoping that the budget that BMW will free up by quitting FE will be pumped into a different, more exciting program, but it doesnt seem like BMW is willing to follow Audi all the way and show up at Le Mans or at the start line of the Dakar Rally.

In fact, its barely been one year and a bit since BMW decided to quit the FIA World Endurance Championship (FIA WEC) where it had been racing in the GTE-Pro ranks with the lanky M8 GTE. The shocking decision, made merely one year after that program had debuted in partnership with M-TEK, was followed recently by BMWs announcement that it ]wont offer too much support->https://www.bmwblog.com/2020/11/16/bmw-dtm-2021/] to the GT3 teams that are looking to compete in the new-fangled DTM with BMW M6 GT3 race cars.

However, the Bavarian marque is preparing to launch a brand-new GT3 car based on the 2021 BMW M4 Coupe. The GT3 racer, slated to make selected appearances at long-distance events throughout 2021 before beginning to reach customers in 2022, will most likely be followed by a GT4 variant set to replace the current M4 GT4.

Beyond that, we also know that BMW is still coy to commit to another full season of IMSA Weathertech Sportscar Championship racing seeing as the Rahal-Letterman Lanigan Racing BMW M8 GTEs (yes, they were kept alive Stateside) havent broken through during the recently-concluded 2020 season that saw Corvette dominate with the new C8.R GTE. Given that Aston Martin has announced that it will reduce its footing in the WECs GTE-Pro class next year and that Porsche has ditched IMSAs GTE class, known as GTLM, altogether, its probably reasonable to think that BMW is cautious to dish out cash towards a program that hasnt delivered titles since the early 10s - although the M6 did score two consecutive wins at the 24 Hours of Daytona.

The current situation in Formula E has raised the alarm within the entire motorsport family. The introduction of the third-generation ruleset (equal to faster, more efficient cars) has been pushed back to 2023 and, thus far, only Mahindra and Mercedes have expressed a clear desire to build the necessary powertrains for Gen 3 Formula E single-seaters as Jaguar, Nissan, DS/Citroen, Porsche, and NIO are still undecided or havent come forth with a formal confirmation of their continued support of the series.

Mercedes has voiced its opinion on the current state of affairs through the voice of Mercedes Motorsport boss Toto Wolff who told Motorsport.com that "I think FE is in a strong position in its niche, and can definitely grow from its niche," before adding that "we remain committed as long as the framework for future regulations, financial regulations, and technical regulations, remain attractive for Mercedes."

"I think that BMW leaving doesnt mean that Andrettis leaving, and Audi leaving doesnt mean that the Audi entry is leaving. So we will get the message, learn the lessons and make it stronger from here," he went on to stress before arguing that "we need to speed up the discussion around cost cap to make it financially more sustainable and we need to discuss revenue distribution. The stability of the upcoming set of rules is also important for the Mercedes Motorsport supremo who wanted to make clear that racing is "not only about technology transfer. It is about performance under pressure. It is about team spirit. And its about fighting against the best."

At the moment, it looks like each manufacturer is looking at ways to "fight the best" while also staying relevant within the market and while also being able to convey the message they want to convey in a believable way. VW stepping back potentially allows Porsche to expand its portfolio in racing (an LMDh program is still on the cards) and Audi most likely decided to return to Le Mans and also to race in the Dakar Rally because endurance racing on the one hand and, on the other, rally racing are key components of the companys DNA. Single-seater racing is not.

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Two of Germanys top automakers realign their respective motorsport strategies - Top Speed