F1-Blog

My Curious Bystander this week takes a look at the VAGroup. It seems that few people can understand why they are not in some way tied into F1. Yes the old argument that they are in Rally (with Skoda) touring cars (with Seat) and Le Mans (with Audi) goes some way to using the companies competition budget up. However can it stay that way for much longer?

Both BWM and Mercedes have got 'big' teams in F1 now, and if VW want to compete at the same level selling cars surely they need to compete at the same level in racing.

Well then this is where my thoughts come in. It seems that the Champ Car series no longer need the Cosworth engine company due to it's link up with the IndyCart series, so will Forsyth and Kalkhoven sell the engine company on?

Well I think they will, and it would not be any surprise if the people who bought it were none other than VAGroup. Why? well VAG have owned Cosworth before, you didn'nt realise that did you. In 1998 Vickers (the then owners) sold Cosworth to VW, who in turn sold the race devision to Ford, this is why up until recently the Ford engine supplier was Cosworth Racing and not Cosworth, this made little difference as everyone called it Cosworth anyway. The VW side of what was left was called Cosworth Technology, the company specialised in Aluminium and power-train development consultancy work. Some (if not most) of the Audi engines powering the VW fleet today owe something at least to Cosworth. VW however sold CT to the Mahle Group in 2004.

So why would VW like the Cosworth name back? well it is a universal brand that is know by every petrol head in the world. Also the history of the engine maker is unprecedented, the F1 world would not be what it is today without Cosworth and it's mighty DFV.

So where does that leave VW if they purchase Cosworth? Well it's well known inside F1 circles that the two Red Bull teams are looking for engines. Red Bull would like to have something other than the Ferrari lump (odd as that sounds) and the V10 in the Toro Rosso cars has to go (or there will be uproar). VW and Red Bull have long been involved together in Motor Sport, so a tie up between them would not be a shock. This would lead to one small issue, what happens to the Cosworth brand? Will the team be Red Bull-Audi-Cosworth and Toro Rosso-VW-Cosworth? that would make sense, use one engine, two teams, two brands. 

Anyhow we will have to see exactly how it pans out, VW may not be interested (although it would help to have Cosworth on board for the in house performance engines for the group, they do own Lamborghini after all). They could buy the Cosworth engine plant and then ditch the name (doubtful). Or they could just make it part of the brand. It would not hurt their rally program to have a 'Powered by Cosworth' on the side of the cars, it would be a big two fingers up to the Ford cars as well, as for years that has been written on their cars.