BMW says Formula 1 remains off the road

Formula 1 has attracted a fresh collection of manufacturers, but BMW says the championship still does not fit the job it wants motor racing to do. BMW Motorsport boss Frank van Meel told Motor1.com that the company's WEC and IMSA programmes have a direct relationship with its road cars, while a Formula 1 project would require a largely separate technical organisation. Formula 1 is too far removed for us, too much like a laboratory and not sufficiently transferable to production cars, he said. Van Meel pointed to specific examples. The M Concept Neue Klasse uses ideas related to the M4 GT3's airflow treatment and diffuser, while its lighting signature draws on the BMW M Hybrid V8 LMDh car. BMW also races with a hybrid V8 and sells hybrid V8 road cars in the M5 and XM. The American programme has a commercial purpose as well as an engineering one. The United States accounts for about 40 percent of BMW Motorsport's volume, making it the division's largest single market, and IMSA provides a direct way to race in front of those customers. Van Meel acknowledged that BMW owners follow Formula 1. His argument was not that the championship lacks an audience, but that popularity alone does not create the production-car link around which BMW Motorsport has built its racing activity. That position leaves BMW on a different path from German rivals Mercedes and Audi. It also suggests that Formula 1's current power-unit rules, although designed to be more relevant to manufacturers, have not erased the distinction BMW sees between a Grand Prix engine programme and its wider product development. BMW withdrew from Formula 1 at the end of 2009. The sport's commercial health has changed greatly since then, but the company's test for a return remains the same: racing technology must have a visible route back to the cars it sells.