The logic behind Audi's surprise change of course

Eight paragraphs deep into an Audi press release, 46 words communicated the end of a factory motorsport programme that will have stretched back seven years come its demise.

That press release read: "The Dakar Rally will replace Audi's factory involvement in Formula E, which will no longer be continued in the form of an Audi factory team after the 2021 season. The use of the newly developed Audi powertrain by customer teams will remain possible beyond next year."

A likely return to the Le Mans 24 Hours for Audi via a combined IMSA SportsCar and World Endurance Championship assault will also come to replace the FE operation in addition to the Dakar switch. That might seem like an odd development for a VW Group member. Amid the fallout of the 'dieselgate' emissions scandal, it could be said that there's been an element of 'electric washing' for the Group.

The Porsche 919 Hybrid and Audi R18 efforts in the LMP1 division of the WEC are both gone. The Audi DTM attack has been killed off. Volkswagen's World Rally plans are over. An Audi tilt in World Rallycross is no more, nor are the Audi and Volkswagen factory World Touring Car efforts. The Porsche Formula 1 engine programme was mothballed to boot.

In a similar vein, this time last year Volkswagen issued a statement declaring it would end its factory support of all programmes using internal combustion engines. Its motorsport division would put a "clear emphasis on fully electric racing cars".

In place of those canned entries, Audi and Porsche now both have FE teams. VW developed its ID.R prototype that holds the outright Pikes Peak and Goodwood hillclimb plus electric Nurburgring Nordschleife lap records. Cupra is ready for the kick-off to Pure ETCR and so too for the maiden season of Extreme E.

No room for internal combustion, no movement into hybrid categories. Up until now, it's been pure voltage only across the whole of the automotive leviathan.

But LMDh, which in essence replaces the IMSA Daytona Prototype international regulations, introduces a standardised hybrid system - a battery developed by Williams Advanced Engineering with Bosch on electric motor duties. Audi's nascent sportscar return is ever so slightly off kilter with the rest of the Group's flagship all-electric racing activities.

There are reasons for this. VW Group chief executive Herbert Diess hasn't stood over a table. He's not had a list of the automotive sub-brands over which he presides and moved them around with a croupier stick like a naval commander might with models of ships to chart their exact positions. Instead, Audi's imminent change in motorsport tact has come with autonomy.

The FE exit and fledgling sportscar and Dakar Rally programmes are its choice. There's not been pressure from above. Not dissimilarly, Porsche has chosen itself to invest massively into synthetic fuel research as an alternative to the electric alternative.

"Formula E was the perfect platform to migrate from traditional car technology to electric. In that respect, absolutely from a technology and sporting point of view, [FE has] opened up so many doors" Allan McNish

Since Porsche joined the FE grid for the 2019-20 season, it's also been too simple to say that there isn't room in the championship for both VW Group manufacturers. Although Audi is about to quit, it's not related to Porsche's presence in the championship - in the same way the pair competed alongside one another in the LMP1 era.

The operation of both FE teams are totally separate. Staff, powertrain technology, data - there's no sharing between the two just as you wouldn't expect it between rivals DS Techeetah and Nissan e.dams.

What is slightly tougher to explain is why Audi's FE exit was officially communicated during FE's pre-season test at the Circuit Ricardo Tormo in Valencia. The news of one manufacturer heading for the exit door came only hours after Mahindra Racing had officially announced its six-year commitment to the Gen3 FE regulations, becoming the first team to do so. Spotlight gone.

In that Mahindra press conference and aware of Audi's decision, little wonder FE chief championship officer Alberto Longo didn't express an abundance of sentimentality when asked what FE would do if a blue-chip manufacturer left for the first time in the series' six-year history.

Longo said: "I don't think there is a strong commitment right now from all of them [teams towards the Gen3 rules commencing in 2022-23]. Obviously, I can never say we will have all of them signed but again we have a kind of waiting list for people - teams and manufacturers - who are basically calling us on a daily basis to jump into the championship. If, unfortunately, some manufacturer decided to leave, we will replace them soon."

As timings go, the choice was indeed odd although rumours had been swirling. And with limited external media allowed back onsite at an FE event for the first time since March, Audi representatives had to face the immediate questions.

But timings aside, the Audi news perhaps shouldn't be met with total shock. Yes, it has developed an all-new powertrain in-house for the first time in its FE history for this season's FE07. But this was two years in the making. It's not as though the technical team came up with the idea one minute, put it into practice the next, and now it's been canned moments after. What's more, that technology will have a direct use in the all-electric Dakar project.

And, more immediately, for the 2022-23 season the powertrain will continue to find a home in FE as Audi will maintain its deal to supply customer team Envision Virgin Racing.

But as for the factory team, it's now decided that FE isn't the arena which best serves the development of the marque's EV hardware. As Audi FE team principal Allan McNish says to Autosport: "[The decision] is linked very much to the brand strategy going forward.

"Formula E was the perfect platform to migrate from traditional car technology to electric. In that respect, absolutely from a technology and sporting point of view, [FE has] opened up so many doors. Racing in all of these beautiful city tracks and everything else.

"The technical requirements from it as well, I don't think any of those lessons are forgotten or, alternatively, aren't able to be used in a future either."

The "brand strategy" that three-time Le Mans winner McNish alludes to also involves Dieter Gass, who led Audi's DTM success for 10 years and its FE entry. He's stepping aside as head of motorsport to be replaced by Julius Seebach - "the right person for the repositioning of the motorsport activities," according to Markus Duesmann, chairman of the board of management and board member for technical development of Audi.

Plans are afoot to rehome the team staff within the respective sportscar and Dakar concerns. If you've got great minds in the team, best to keep hold of them and let them apply it elsewhere

Both drivers Lucas di Grassi and Rene Rast - now a three-time DTM champion - are on long-term contracts with Audi that extend beyond the reach of FE. Likewise, McNish tells Autosport that plans are afoot to rehome the team staff within the respective sportscar and Dakar concerns. If you've got great minds in the team, best to keep hold of them and let them apply it elsewhere.

Those same minds held Audi on its way to winning the teams' championship in 2017-18, with it all coming down to the final New York race in which the German marque held off Techeetah by two points. There's been 12 race victories under the guises of Audi and its Abt team precursor.

Ahead of FE's first season as a fully fledged FIA world championship, there's another bit of history to be won. "For season seven, we still have maximum focus and maximum attack," adds McNish. "There's no change to that at all."

With the FE grid capped at 24 cars, Audi's departure leaves an opening for one new vacancy. Following the final confirmation that the UK's ban on the sale of petrol and diesel will come into force for 2030, FE's relevance is as prominent as ever - despite the Audi news. If as Longo says, the OEMs are queuing round the block to get in, sometime soon there'll be no more room in the FE inn yet again.