Audi’s innovative first assault on grand prix racing

Audi recently announced plans to enter the world of Formula 1 as an engine supplier. Timed to coincide with the introduction of new powertrain regulations, it is expected to join the battle for honours in 2026 with the Sauber team.

In terms of the world championship, it’ll be Audi’s first appearance, but look further back and the four interlinked rings of Audi have a grand prix history that few can match.

The story starts in 1932 with the merging of four German companies: Audi, Horch, DKW, and Wanderer. Each company kept its individual identity and the corporation, named Auto Union, adopted four interlinking rings as its logo to signify this.

At the same time grand prix racing was at something of a low point, with limited entries primarily consisting of Bugattis and Alfa Romeos. The governing body, the Association Internationale des Automobile Clubs Reconnus (AIACR) decided a new formula was needed, announcing that this would come into effect in 1934.

Assuming that limiting the maximum weight of the cars would effectively limit performance, the ‘750kg formula’ (referencing the upper permissible weight for competing cars) was created. As with the 2026 regulations, this encouraged new projects.

Adolf Hitler had been appointed German Chancellor in 1933 and saw this as an opportunity to prove the advantages of his ideology on the world stage, offering a subsidy of 500,000 Reichsmarks as encouragement for a team to enter. As expected, Daimler-Benz with their history of success with the Mercedes marque, stepped up to accept the challenge. Auto Union, after a deputation had met with Hitler, secured half of the money.

According to Chris Nixon in his seminal book Racing the Silver Arrows, there was an expectation that the weight limit would restrict engine size to 2.5 litres and power to 200 bhp. Although the Mercedes and Auto Unions had unsuccessful early appearances at the 1934 Avusrennen and French GP, they immediately made a mockery of the intent, with the Mercedes W25 producing 280bhp from 3.4 litres and the Auto-Union A Type generated 295bhp from 4.4 litres.

Both were supercharged and neither looked like anything else on the grid. The Mercedes had the air of a science fiction version of a 1930s racing car. The engine was at the front but the bodywork was much smoother and more rounded than usual. The Auto Union was completely unconventional, sitting lower with a mid-engine layout that preceded Cooper's rear-engined revolution by more than two decades.

In what only becomes a matter of irony now given the brands within the VW Audi Group, the Auto Union was designed by Dr Ferdinand Porsche. And it wasn't only the engine's location that was radical.

Audi, under the Auto Union banner, took the fight to Mercedes in the mid-1930s

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Under the louvred rear cover was a V16 with a vee angle of 45 degrees and a single centrally mounted camshaft. Dr Porsche had wanted to develop a rigid, under-stressed engine that produced its power low down in the rev band. The low-revving nature meant there wasn't a need to maximise valve area or minimise their inertia so two valves per cylinder sufficed, the outer set on each bank being operated via push rods housed in individual tubes.

The narrow angle of the block helped to increase strength and rigidity while still ensuring the car as a whole met the 750kg maximum weight, this excluding tyres, fuel, oil or water.

Although originally built with two superchargers, the engine soon moved on to having only one, which drew the fuel/air mixture through the carburettor. Another major development during its four-season life was a change from shell bearings to roller bearings with a Hirth-type crankshaft, this being built up from separate elements that transmit torque through interlocking teeth radiating out from the centre of the circular face at each joint. This design allowed for greater flexibility in manufacture and installation but was also very costly.

Despite the Auto-Union's all-independent suspension and centrally located fuel tank, the large mid-mounted engine made the car tricky to handle. Only two drivers are acknowledged as having truly mastered them and both started their racing careers on motorbikes

With government backing, a deeply technical approach, the adoption of aeronautical practices and a heightened nationalistic pride, it's little wonder that the Silver Arrows made all other cars on the grid look immediately outdated. For the purists, it should be noted that ‘Silver Arrows’ originally referred to the Mercedes only but is now generally accepted as applying to the cars fielded by both teams.

Once the German cars hit their stride only the Italians would manage to challenge them and even then, success was rare. The supremely talented Tazio Nuvolari took an unexpected win at the German GP, of all places, in an outclassed Alfa Romeo in 1935. The Italian resistance faltered and the frontrunners became nearly uniformly silver.

Despite the Auto-Union's all-independent suspension and centrally located fuel tank, which avoided changes in balance as it emptied, the large mid-mounted engine made the car tricky to handle. In fact only two drivers are acknowledged as having truly mastered them and, significantly, both started their racing careers on motorbikes.

The first was the blond-haired, boyish and irrepressible Bernd Rosemeyer. Given a trial by the team at the end of the 1934 season, he was retained as a junior driver then badgered team manager Willy Walb into allowing him to race at Avus the following year.

Bernd Rosemeyer became one of the brand's driving superstars until his death

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At his second race, around the Nurburgring, he led for much of the time before just being beaten into second at the end. There followed a brief but glittering career where Grand Prix wins, close scrapes and escapes, and a driving style notable for its inspired and uncompromising verve earned him legendary status. Sadly, after winning the 1936 European Championship (the closest thing at the time to a world title) and only ever having competed on four wheels at GP level, he perished at the wheel of a streamlined Auto Union, chasing speed records on the autobahn near Frankfurt. British racer Earl Howe described him as a “delightful, charming and attractive character” with “a most delightful sense of humour”.

By 1937 the V16 had been expanded, as originally planned, to six litres and was producing 520bhp. With Mercedes' mighty W125 delivering over 600bhp it's little wonder that, for 1938, a three-litre limit on engine capacity was introduced.

PLUS: The scale of the challenge facing Audi's F1 assault

With Rosemeyer gone it was also time for a new master of the Auto Union to take up the reins. Nuvolari had been vetoed from joining the team in 1934 by contracted driver and sometime friend/sometime arch-enemy Achille Varzi. By 1938 Varzi was off the scene fighting drug addiction and the opportunity at last presented itself, after a single outing in the C Type during the previous year, for Nuvolari to show what he could do in a German car.

The new D Type took advantage of a shorter, V12 engine to bring the driver further back to a more central position, helped further by moving the fuel to side-mounted pannier tanks. The introduction of the new engine also allowed for a general redesign, with three cams now being adopted, the central one looking after the inlet valves only. Eventually this would sport two-stage supercharging, where the first blower feeds into the second, which then supplies the engine.

Despite the enforced drop in capacity, it still went on to produce well over 500bhp by the time the formula came to an end. Mercedes took the lead in these last couple of years before the outbreak of World War 2 with the famed W154 but, after a less than successful start, the little Mantuan worked his magic to bring the victory laurels back to Auto Union once more. Of the biggest pre-war GPs held in the UK, both at Donington Park, Rosemeyer won one and Nuvolari the other.

After hostilities ceased a ravaged Germany was split between East and West, with what would become known as ‘the iron curtain’ keeping them separate. Mercedes as a single entity was based in Stuttgart in the West. Audi, inheriting the four-ring badge, was based at Ingolstadt and was also in the West, but the other main constituents of Auto Union, including the GP team, were cut off in the East.

As West Germany rebuilt its economy, Mercedes went racing again, but the Auto Unions (which were hidden and therefore survived hostilities) were sent to Russia for examination.

Post-war Audi's motorsport highlights include its WRC and Le Mans successes

Photo by: Eric Gilbert

From the late 1970s onwards Audi returned to competition through rallying, the American IMSA series and later endurance racing. Two manufacturer World Rally championships in the 1980s and winning 13 Le Mans 24 Hours between 2000 and 2014 are arguably the most notable highlights so far, but there’s a sense now of a return to where it all began – the crucible of GP competition.

During restoration of one of the surviving D Types, a tiny star of David was found scratched on one of the carburettor bodies

It's thought only four original Auto Unions remain, with Audi having also commissioned a few replicas. During restoration of one of the surviving D Types, a tiny star of David was found scratched on one of the carburettor bodies. No one knows who did it, or even whether it appeared when the car was racing for Germany or being examined in Russia. Either way, someone took a huge risk putting it there.

Whether a symbol of defiance or hope, it remains a profoundly emotional link to the past and reminds us that these cars tell a complex story beyond mere motoring heroes and engineering excellence.

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