VW in F1??

[Arctra]

I doubt VAG would do this unless they were certain of performing well and there were more than vague gains to be had. The value of F1 to manufacturers of bread and butter cars has to be questioned.

As I recall Murray Walker saying a while ago, it's been a long time since car manufacturers have been able to say that F1 has benefited the development of mass market cars with a straight face. I know Renault and Toyota have tagged "f1 inspired" and such on some of their advertising campaigns, but it's hardly been significant claims.

Things like KERS could possibly see mass market cars benefiting from the technology, but it's introduction in F1 has yielded pretty poor results really. With stopping refueling at pit stops, it's going to be necessary to improve the efficiency of the engines which might trickle through to mass market cars. But car manufacturers would probably get better bang-for-buck developing the tech for cars straight away rather than for F1 first.

Maybe if the Concorde Agreement was amended to encourage Diesel we'll see VW coming to the sport to do for F1 what they did for Le Manns!