How Porsche's F1 Deal Collapsed.

Añadido: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]In 2022, Porsche and Red Bull were about to form the most powerful partnership Formula 1 had ever seen. One company was the best racing team on the planet. The other was one of the most iconic car brands in history. The deal was done.

[00:00:14]The press release was written. An announcement date was set. Then Red Bull killed it. This is what happened and why it changed Formula 1 forever.

[00:00:28]The fact that these two organizations found each other in 2022 surprised nobody. But what happened next surprised everyone. But to understand why, you first need to go back. Because Porsche had tried to conquer Formula 1 before three times. And the results had ranged from modest to invisible to openly humiliating. Their first entry into Grand Prix racing came in 1961. They had a car. They had an engine. They weren't particularly competitive, but they showed up. Dangi scored them a single victory in 1962. Then Porsche looked at the costs, looked at what they were getting in return, and quietly walked away. The second chapter of Porsche and Formula 1 is the chapter most people don't know is a Porsche chapter. In 1983, a company called TAG paid Porsche to develop a turbocharged V6 engine for the McLaren Formula 1 team. Tag's money.

[00:01:15]Porsche's engineering. McLaren's car.

[00:01:18]Between 1984 and 1986, McLaren won three Formula 1 world championships with that engine. Nikki Lauder, Alan Prost, dominant clinical historic seasons. The engine didn't carry Porsche's name. It was called the Tag Turbo. Porsche built it. Someone else got the credit. Then came 1991. Porsche returned to Formula 1 as an engine supplier. This time under their own name for a team called Footwork Arrows. And it was not just a failure, it was an embarrassment. The engine Porsche build, the 3512, weighed approximately 180 kg. The Ferrari of the same era, weighed around 160 kg. In a sport where engineers spent weeks trying to save 50 g of a single component, Porsche had arrived with an engine wh heavier than their main rival. It was underpowered and it had a chronic tendency to destroy itself from the inside, starving its own components of oil under racing stress, causing repeated catastrophic failures mid race.

[00:02:15]At the first race of the season in Phoenix, one footwork driver failed to qualify. The other qualified 25th and the engine failed before the race was half done. Another engine exploded in Monaco. Footwork pulled the plug mid-season and replaced the Porsche units with Cossworth engines, a standard customer engine that any team could buy off the shelf, the motorsport equivalent of being swapped out for something available in a catalog. Porsche disappeared from Formula 1 that day. For 31 years, they didn't come back.

[00:02:47]To understand why 2022 felt different, you need to understand the situation Red Bull was in. Red Bull Racing is not a traditional Formula 1 team. Established in 2005 and run by an energy drink company, Red Bull was built around one specific philosophy. Move fast, think differently, don't wait for permission.

[00:03:05]Within 5 years of arriving, Red Bull was the best team on the grid. four consecutive world championships between 2010 and 2013 with Sebastian Fettle.

[00:03:13]Then in 2021, Honda, their engine supplier, announced they were leaving Formula 1 at the end of the season. For most teams, losing an engine manufacturer is close to catastrophic.

[00:03:24]The companies supplying Formula 1 power units invest hundreds of millions of dollars and years of dedicated engineering to be competitive at that level. You don't replace that overnight.

[00:03:33]Red Bull's response was to announce they would build their own engine from scratch in house at a brand new facility in Milton Kane's England. They called the new division Red Bull Power Trains.

[00:03:44]It was either extraordinary confidence or extraordinary arrogance, possibly both. Underneath the boldness, though, was a practical problem. Building a new engine division takes time and money on a scale that strains even large organizations. And looming over everything was 2026, a complete overhaul of Formula 1's technical regulations, including a brand new engine formula, simpler, more road relevant, designed to attract new manufacturers into the sport who had been priced out or put off by the complexity of the previous rules.

[00:04:12]For Red Bull, 2026 was going to demand another enormous step in investment and capability. They needed a partner.

[00:04:19]Porsche, meanwhile, had spent years developing hybrid technology through their endurance racing program, winning the 24 hours of Lemon outright in 2015, 2016, and 2017. That expertise was directly relevant to what the 2026 engine formula required. They had capital, they had the brand, and they had been desperate for a proper Formula 1 presence under their own name for decades. Red Bull needed what Porsche had. Porsche needed what Red Bull had.

[00:04:45]and Formula 1 growing faster than it had in years was the stage both of them wanted to be on. By early 2022, they were talking seriously.

[00:04:59]The shape of the deal that emerged from those talks was striking. Porsche was not interested in a traditional engine supply arrangement, not a badge on a power unit, not a sponsorship dressed up as a partnership. Porsche wanted ownership, real structural ownership of the Formula 1 operation itself. The proposal was a 50% stake in Red Bull's entire Formula 1 program. Not just the powertrain division, the racing team itself. Red Bull Racing, one of the most valuable sporting franchises in the world, would become half Porsches. In return, Porsche would co-develop the 2026 engine, bring financial investment, and provide access to their hybrid technology and engineering resources. By late spring, the deal had progressed far enough that an announcement date was set. the Austrian Grand Prix. Early July, the Red Bull Ring, the circuit named for Red Bull, located in the home country of Red Bull's founders. Porsche making their return to Formula 1 official at the most symbolically loaded race on the calendar. The press release was written. PR teams were briefed.

[00:05:55]Within the Formula 1 paddock, a world where information moves through informal networks faster than any official statement. People weren't really asking whether the deal would happen. They were already adjusting to a world where it had. Then the FIA missed the deadline.

[00:06:09]The FIA is the governing body of Formula 1. They write and approve the technical regulations, the rule book every manufacturer must understand fully before committing a decade of engineering work. The 2026 engine regulations had been promised by the end of June 2022. They didn't arrive. For Porsche, a company operating within the Volkswagen Group, one of the largest automotive conglomerates in the world, a company that requires board level approval before making major strategic commitments. This was a real obstacle.

[00:06:36]You cannot sign a 10-year partnership built around a technical formula that hasn't been finalized. The announcement was delayed. The Austrian Grand Prix came and went without ceremony. And while the FIA worked through their process, something happened inside the Volkswagen group that nobody had anticipated. Herbert D, the CEO of Folkswagen, the man who had personally approved and publicly championed the Formula 1 entries for both Porsche and Audi, the single most important executive voice behind the entire project, was removed from his position.

[00:07:05]In late July 2022, it was confirmed that D would be replaced as VW group chairman by Oliver Bloom, who was at that moment the chairman of Porsche itself. The person who believed in this deal most was gone midnegotiation. The executive who had green lit the entire strategy had just been replaced at the highest level. And on the other side of the table, Red Bull was watching all of it.

[00:07:26]This was not a minor personnel change.

[00:07:28]This was the kind of corporate instability that makes any serious partner pause and reconsider what they're walking into.

[00:07:39]On top of the FIA delay and the VW leadership upheaval, something happened in late July that changed the negotiation entirely. Official documents emerged from the competition authority of Morocco. Antitrust filings, the kind of regulatory paperwork that must be submitted across multiple jurisdictions whenever a major corporate acquisition is being planned. Standard legal procedure, routine, except the contents were not routine. The documents confirmed that Porsche was in the process of acquiring a 50% stake in Red Bull technology. The deal was now public before it was finished, before it was signed, before either side had chosen to announce it. Two things happened at once. Porsche lost control of the narrative when you are finalizing a partnership of this scale. The timing of when you go public is part of the negotiation itself. And that control was now gone, handed to a filing in a country neither party had chosen. And the leak woke someone else up. Honda had officially departed Formula 1 at the end of 2021, but the reality was more complicated. Red Bull and Honda had maintained a working relationship throughout 2022. Honda's technology was still inside the cars, still being developed and serviced behind the scenes. The official exit was clean on paper. In practice, the connection had never fully closed. Honda Racing Corporation was watching the Porsche talks closely. When the Moroccan documents made it legally concrete, when it became undeniable that Porsche acquiring 50% of Red Bull would seal off any path back for Honda, their interest accelerated. Behind the scenes, Honda began having more direct conversations with Red Bull about 2026. What would a return look like? What could be built around it? The deal that had seemed finished was now being reconsidered. Red Bull had options they hadn't had before.

[00:09:22]The longer the talks with Porsche went on, the more uncomfortable things became inside Red Bull. The deeper both sides pushed into the practical details of how a 50/50 co-ownership would actually function, who approves what, who holds authority over which decisions, how the two organizations would interact dayto-day, the more of Porsche's corporate machinery became visible, more Porsche executives appearing at meetings, more signoffs required before anything could move, more of the Volkswagen group's institutional structure becoming legible through the conversation. Red Bull had been built on speed and independence, the ability to make decisions without committees, to move in ways that large automotive organizations structurally cannot replicate. What Red Bull was seeing across the negotiating table was a preview of what life inside a Porsche co-ownership would actually look like.

[00:10:06]Not just the brand and the capital, the approval chains attached to them, the board cycles, the process. Worth noting, the VW group had just removed the CEO who championed this deal and replaced him with the Porsche chairman. That kind of organizational turbulence playing out in real time while negotiations were ongoing was not a reassuring signal about the stability of what Red Bull would be agreeing to. Christian her began making his position clear carefully without naming Porsche directly but without ambiguity. He spoke about Red Bull's independence, their way of working, the need for any new relationship to fit the organization's culture rather than reshape it. Then Audi moved. Porsche's sister brand within the Volkswagen group had been pursuing their own Formula 1 entry in parallel. While Porsche was waiting on the FIA, waiting on board approvals, navigating the leadership transition at VW, Audi simply committed. At the Belgian Grand Prix in late August, Audi announced they were entering Formula 1 for 2026. As a team acquiring the Saur team within Porsche, the contrast stung.

[00:11:05]Within Red Bull, it was clarifying.

[00:11:07]Right next to them was a demonstration of what a partnership with a VW group manufacturer could look like. fast, clean, decisive, and what Porsche's version had looked like by comparison.

[00:11:17]Months of talks, a leaked document, a replaced CEO, and still no announcement.

[00:11:21]At the Dutch Grand Prix, Helmet Marco, Red Bull's motorsport adviser, was asked about Porsche. His answer was nine words. Porsche will not become a shareholder in US.

[00:11:35]What happened after Monza is not a footnote. It is the part of this story that changes what the story means.

[00:11:41]Porsche did not walk away from Formula 1 after Red Bull said no. They went looking for another door. Conversations were opened with McLaren, one of the most storied teams in Formula 1 history with 11 constructors championships and a brand of their own that sits in the same cultural territory as Porsche. If any team might have seen things differently than Red Bull, it was McLaren. McLaren raised the same concerns, the same structural resistance to the level of equity and organizational access Porsche was seeking. The answer delivered more quietly than Red Bull's was the same answer. One rejection can be explained away. Red Bull are famously protective of their independence. They have a resistance to outside interference that is almost constitutional to who they are. Maybe the problem was Red Bull specifically. Maybe a different team would have said yes. Two rejections from two different teams with two different ownership structures, two different histories, two different sets of priorities. Those tell a different story. They suggest the obstacle was not Red Bull's culture. It was the gap between what Porsche believed they were worth and what the teams who looked closely at the offer actually concluded.

[00:12:42]Porsche had spent decades operating on the assumption that the Porsche name was by itself sufficient currency to buy a seat at any table they chose. In Formula 1 in 2022, a sport flushed with investment, growing faster than at any point in its history with teams who had built real technical advantages of their own. That assumption ran directly into its limit. Meanwhile, Red Bull moved on without breaking stride. Within months of the Monza statement, Red Bull announced a partnership with Ford for the 2026 engine program. Ford, a company that had been absent from Formula 1 for two decades, would co-develop the power unit alongside Red Bull Power Trains and put their name on the car. But Red Bull retained full operational control of the team. The arrangement was in every meaningful sense the opposite of what Porsche had proposed. A manufacturer willing to come in on Red Bull's terms, not their own. The seat Porsche had spent months negotiating for was filled by someone who asked for less. In March 2023, Porsche confirmed they would not be on the grid in 2026. In August 2024, Porsche's motorsport director Thomas Ldenbach went further. Formula 1, he said, was a closed chapter, not a topic, something the organization was no longer spending energy on. 33 years after footwork, two rejections in the same negotiating window, and Ford's logo on the car that should have been theirs.

[00:13:59]The story of the Red Bull Porsche deal is not a story about one side being right and the other being wrong. It is a story about two organizations and then a third with fundamentally incompatible ideas of what a partnership should mean.

[00:14:12]A brand that went around the paddock, heard the same answer twice, and still couldn't close the gap. What is certain is this. The press release was written, the announcement was booked, and somewhere in a legal archive that nobody looks at anymore. There is a document from a competition authority in Morocco confirming that for a brief moment in the summer of 2022, the deal was real enough to require regulatory filings across 20 countries. Real enough to be almost just not real enough to happen.