SAO PAULO/INGOLSTADT (dpa-AFX) - The latest announcement from Jürgen Rittersberger, Audi AG's board member responsible for finance, legal affairs and IT, regarding Formula 1 was actually quite clear. "We have a clear decision-making situation with us on the Board of Management and the Supervisory Board," he said recently at a meeting with business media on the publication of the financial figures from the brand for the third quarter of this year. And Rittersberger also clarified: "We are sticking to our timetables for entry in 2026. There is no other decision on this."

The entry refers to the VW subsidiary's planned involvement in Formula 1 - the starting year is to be the 2026 season. "For the Formula 1 project, Audi Sport is pooling its forces," was one of the statements made in the press release last August regarding the entry - in line with the new regulations in the motorsport king class. It was the right time for Audi to enter, it said. "Because Formula 1 and Audi are both pursuing clear sustainability goals," Markus Duesmann extolled at the time as Chairman of the Board of Management of Audi AG. The emphasis is on then.

Because at the end of June this year, Audi announced that Duesmann would no longer be Audi's CEO as of September 1. The post went to Gernot Dollner, who had previously been responsible for the VW Group's overall strategy.

And it is precisely this change in personnel that has since fueled rumors and speculation about the commitment that has already been announced and has long since begun to take shape with high expenditures, a factory and corresponding personnel. Recently, the news magazine "Der Spiegel" reported that Audi's Formula 1 project was to be put to the test internally and that those responsible at the parent company were "once again analyzing the situation in detail".

The fact that Dollner, who recently also took a look at the factory in Neuburg an der Donau during a visit, has a kind of duty of confidentiality in his first 100 days in office makes for additional speculation as to whether the planned entry into Formula 1 in 2026 as a works team with the takeover of the traditional Swiss team Sauber will really work out and be completed. Despite all denials, even almost 10,000 kilometers away from this weekend's Brazilian Grand Prix in Sao Paulo./jmx/DP/zb