The time-honoured manufacturer model that can't apply to all F1 teams

Formula 1 is not a school sports day where everyone goes home with a medal. No, it’s where money and meritocracy meet to ensure the most successful teams are the ones that are slickest run and backed by deep pockets – even with cost caps.

Audi wants to prove it can cut it among the best with a nascent engine programme and eventual Sauber tie-up for 2026. Former Volkswagen Group CEO Herbert Diess publicly listed beating Daimler on track and at the forecourts as the reason for entering. Audi took an unsubtle swipe at the Silver Arrows, declaring this will be “the first time in more than a decade that a Formula 1 powertrain will be built in Germany” (take that, Brixworth!), while the social media posts were about the four rings becoming “the new stars”. 

Whether that’s entertaining needle or simply needless, to beat Mercedes Audi will, by definition, have to be fighting at the front. Big boss Markus Duesmann said as much at Spa. He stated: “Ideally, within the first three years, we should be very competitive.” But for Audi to score podiums and wins, it will have to do so at the expense of other marques with similarly lofty ambitions.

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This comes as the headcount for pukka road car manufacturers could still climb. Audi joins Ferrari, Mercedes and Alpine, while Honda appears to have rediscovered its interest in F1 and Porsche, having backed away from Red Bull, may yet go to the altar with another outfit. Because the race team and power unit cost caps are known, at least three of the factory programmes can be assumed to be writing an annual cheque of around £235m – excluding team boss and driver salaries plus various promo costs. 

Since these works F1 set ups must answer to boardrooms and validate themselves on a spreadsheet, at some point there’s an expectation to hit that corporate buzz-phrase ‘return on investment’. In other words, when the racing justifies itself by recouping costs via the ‘win on Sunday, sell on Monday’ adage.

Audi is already aiming to beat Mercedes both on and off the track when it enters F1 in 2026

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

But what if they do neither? As the 2009 financial crisis showed, manufacturers are all too happy to exit stage left if they’re haemorrhaging money but not adding to the trophy cabinet. When financial prudence is required, profligate motorsport activities are the first in line for the axe.

Following this logic, surely Alpine is most at risk of being cut loose by its parent company. It’s won only once since its 2016 return and, as a branding exercise, the Alpine moniker still doesn’t carry much cachet. And numerous internal sources corroborate rumours that the Enstone factory and engine facility in Viry-Chatillon don’t always interact harmoniously. 

"No one in F1 is demonstrating a greater vision and absolute commitment to winning [than Aston], and that makes it a really exciting opportunity for me" Fernando Alonso

Then there’s what Fernando Alonso’s switch to Aston Martin for 2023 reveals. He reckons: “No one in F1 is demonstrating a greater vision and absolute commitment to winning [than Aston], and that makes it a really exciting opportunity for me.” In the first instance, those words acknowledge Lawrence Stroll pouring in the cash to build a new factory. In the second, it implies that Alpine (fourth in the constructors’ compared to Aston in ninth) has a lower ceiling. That’s a worry, since Enstone has already received its big-budget redevelopment after the former Lotus tenant neglected its upkeep. 

Conceivably, F1’s current commercial success and its huge audience are sufficiently lucrative to offset big spending and midfield running, so that no manufacturer feels the need to sell up and see how accurate the suggestion of a £500m asking price for a team really is. But, of them, perhaps the Renault Group is most tempted to find out.

Could the pressure end up on Alpine if it cannot find F1 success?

Photo by: Carl Bingham / Motorsport Images