Why BMW Has No Plans to Return to Formula 1
Jun.1 – BMW is not interested in joining fellow German carmakers Mercedes and Audi on the Formula 1 grid.
Last year, having last contested the top Le Mans class in 1999, BMW returned to the World Endurance Championship in the premier Hypercar category. In 2025, former Haas driver Kevin Magnussen occupies one of the cockpits.
However, BMW’s motorsport boss Frank van Meel now insists: “We’re not ignoring (F1). We’re just not participating.
“That is on purpose,” he said at the vintage car event Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este. “For us, the WEC was the place to go.”
BMW pulled out of Formula 1 at the end of 2009, having owned and collaborated with the Sauber team – which is now owned by Audi ahead of that German marque’s 2026 F1 entry.
Further explaining BMW’s ongoing F1 snub, van Meel added: “The (WEC) cars are closer to series-production models. We can learn things and transfer things.
“In Formula 1, to learn things and transfer things to series-production cars is almost impossible. It’s too far away.”
He said carmakers in Formula 1 are most concerned about marketing.
“We do, of course, use it for marketing,” said van Meel, “but it’s not for marketing only. For us, it also has to have something to do with the real thing – with the real cars that people can buy.”
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