Audi has panicked – and is replacing the leadership of its Formula 1 project. The new boss has something Harry Potter-like about him. He once dumped Sebastian Vettel at Ferrari.
On a drizzly day at the end of August 2022 in Spa-Francorchamps, Markus Duesmann was extremely proud. At the time, Duesmann was head of Audi and was proud to announce the Volkswagen subsidiary’s entry into Formula 1 for the 2026 season. At his side, behind a futuristic racing car model, was the then Audi technical board member Oliver Hoffmann, no less proud. What a day that August 26, 2022 was!
Almost two years later, not much is left of this snapshot from the proud Audi family album. Duesmann has long since ceased to be the boss of the Ingolstadt-based company. And Hoffmann, who was most recently the general representative for the Formula 1 project, has also lost his job. Together with Andreas Seidl, the previous managing director of the future Audi factory team, he was dismissed and replaced by the former Ferrari team boss Mattia Binotto. And this just before the Belgian Grand Prix in Spa-Francorchamps.
It is hard to make the project work more clean. Personnel decisions can hardly reflect more panic around one and a half years before the real emergency on the asphalt. “Our goal is to bring the entire Formula 1 project up to F1 speed through clear management structures, clear responsibilities, reduced interfaces and efficient coordination processes,” explained Audi boss Gernot Döllner, who is also taking over as chairman of the board of directors at Sauber Motorsport AG. “To do this, the team must be able to act independently and quickly.”
On the one hand, Döllner obviously didn’t think things were going fast enough. Kick Sauber, which is being taken over 100 percent by Audi as a works team, is the only Formula 1 team without any points this season. The backlog of reforms couldn’t be described more clearly. It’s unthinkable if that were to continue from 2026 onwards.
Two Audi Alphas become one Audi Alpha
On the other hand, Döllner also wanted to do things more sleekly. There was apparently a power struggle between Seidl, who had successfully moderated the turnaround as team boss at McLaren from 2019, and Hoffmann. Döllner decided on a clear break and relieved both Audi Alphas of their duties.
The new man was previously compared to the sorcerer’s apprentice Harry Potter in the paddock because of his glasses. Binotto never particularly liked that, the Swiss-born Italian is too much of an intellectual for that. The man with the tousled hair joined Ferrari in 1995 and served Michael Schumacher as an engine engineer during his Ferrari era. Binotto later rose to become technical director before replacing Maurizio Arrivabene as team boss in early 2019 after a power struggle.
Binotto knows how merciless the Formula 1 business is. He made Sebastian Vettel feel that too. In the 2020 Corona season, Binotto dumped the four-time world champion on the phone at the end of the year. He went through in his mind three times beforehand what and how he would say it to the German, the then Ferrari team boss admitted.
Binotto, who was most recently responsible for the electric drive division at a technology company, will start his new job at Audi on August 1. “With his extensive experience from over 25 years of Formula 1, he will certainly be able to make a decisive contribution to Audi,” said Döllner.
Binotto has enough tasks. Kick Sauber needs to be rebuilt as a racing team so that Audi can go full throttle as a works team from 2026. And then, of course, a second driver needs to be found alongside the current Haas man Nico Hülkenberg. Perhaps Carlos Sainz will now decide to go with Audi after all. The Spaniard knows Binotto very well, as he was the one who became the new Ferrari driver after Vettel was dumped.
Source: Stern
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