With Honda’s shock announcement of their immediate departure from F1 due to the current auto industry financial crisis, BMW have reaffirmed their commitment to the F1 program and maintain that it is elemental to their product development and branding strategy.November saw a 25% slide in sales for the Bavarian car maker and has prompted questions about BMW’s willingness to stay in F1 due to similar financial pressures that Honda credit as their reason for exiting the sport. According to BMW, they have every intention on remaining in F1:
“It is with regret that we learnt of Honda’s decision. It has no bearing on BMW’s involvement in Formula One,” said BMW board member Dr. Klaus Draeger. “Our F1 involvement is an integral part of the company strategy. There is no better platform than Formula One for demonstrating our brand values. BMW, moreover, makes targeted use of the Formula One project as a technology accelerator for series production.”
“With the BMW Sauber F1 Team, we have from the start focused on high efficiency and have achieved our successes with a compact and powerful team,” he added. “The cost-benefit ratio is commensurately positive. The measures now proposed by FOTA for significant cost cuts starting as early as season 2009 are a further important contribution.”
