Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsRed Bull Racing

VW set to take over Red Bull - report

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Volkswagen is closing in on a takeover deal of the Red Bull F1 team, according to the BBC's Eddie Jordan.

Jordan - who correctly predicted Lewis Hamilton's move from McLaren to Mercedes - claims the deal would see Volkswagen buy the team and build its own engine, but Red Bull would remain as a major sponsor and use Ferrari power in the interim until the Volkswagen engine was ready in 2018.

Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz - who Jordan says has agreed the deal with the Volkswagen board of directors' chairman Martin Winterkorn - confirmed on Friday its current engine deal with Renault will end at the end of this season.

The previous chairman of Volkswagen's board of directors, Ferdinand Piech, was seen as a major block on any future F1 ambitions for the German marque, but he resigned in April.

While F1 paddock members are sceptical of the claim - one rival team boss dismissively said "I don't think so" when told of the report by F1i - such a deal would allow Red Bull to scale back its involvement in the sport while not breaking its bilateral agreement to remain in F1 until 2020. It would also allow Volkswagen sufficient time to develop a power unit and enter under one of its automotive brands: Audi, Porsche, Lamborghini, Bugatti, Bentley, Seat or Skoda.

Red Bull and Volkswagen currently have a partnership in the World Rally Championship, where Red Bull sponsors the VW entry which has seen Sebastien Ogier win three consecutive world championships.

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.