Porsche Finally Speaks Out on Public Red Bull Break Up: “At Least We Behaved Fairly”

Every single vehicle manufacturer wants to establish a lasting relationship with the Formula 1 community. The same goals were pursued by Volkswagen’s Porsche brand, but they were unsuccessful due to divergent viewpoints. And now that the main man, Fritz Enzinger, has said goodbye to his illustrious career with Porsche, he has chosen to disclose the failure of the deal with Red Bull in public.

The German-based organization claimed that they intended to compete at the highest level of motorsport with two distinct brands, Porsche and Audi, each of which had a unique launch strategy. With Audi, the company sought to create more of a premium brand, but Porsche needed success to be known as the most alluring sports car brand.

Audi’s roadmap is beginning to take shape as the team collaborates with Sauber. And the cherry on top is that their former employee, Andreas Seidl has been named the new CEO of Sauber, which can assist the Ingolstadt-based company in laying out the broad strokes early. Unlike Audi, where everything is running well, Porsche has had trouble forming partnerships thus far. Porsche intended to partner with Red Bull and even had excellent communication with Helmut Marko and Dietrich Mateschitz. But as we all know, the Austrian companies canceled the contract at the last minute.

And now Enzinger spoke to Motorsports.com and said, “The talks went very well. We already had a handshake about our participation in the team, but the deal was not finalized at the last minute.” Revealing what made the deal being called off by the Milton Keynes side, the retiring boss said, “We wanted to be an equal partner. But of course, everyone has to decide for themselves whether they want to sell shares or not. That’s okay with us. At least we behaved fairly.”

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Although the Red Bull agreement is no longer in effect, but CFO Lutz Meschke made it quite clear a few months ago that there are still plenty of alternative possibilities on the F1 grid.

What happened after the stinging denial from Red Bull for Porsche?

The collaboration talks between the two sides have ended. When the automaker decided to give up on trying to get into the F1 scene, they might have had other options. It was rumored that two of the leading F1 teams had a preliminary conversation with the German automakers owned by VW. Without adding to the suspense, the two teams are Mclaren and Williams. For the unknowns, Porsche has a well-established relationship with the bosses of both teams. Both Jost Capito and Andreas Seidl have experience with the Volkswagen company.

According to Lutz Meschke, they are in no hurry of signing a contract and they will calmly look for other options, “We do not allow ourselves to be pressured into a decision of which we are not convinced, “said Meschke on Sport1. “For us, Formula 1 remains an interesting racing series. So we’re looking to see if there are any other viable options.” [Translated using Google]

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The agreement was almost finalized, but as everyone knows, Red Bull has always been a small team primarily made up of “lone” Wolfs, and they don’t want anything to stand in the way of their success.