Official: BMW will leave Formula 1 after 2009!

As unfortunately rumored, BMW officially announced this morning during a press conference its departure from Formula 1 at the end of 2009.

This morning at 8:00 AM (local time) the BMW group met in Munich (Germany) to discuss the future of BMW and particularly its future in F1. After a more than difficult start to the season, Dr. Norbert Reithofer, Chairman of the Board of Directors of BMW, confirmed the news by stating that the decision was made with the goal of a strategic reorganization of the German brand.

« Of course, it was a difficult decision for us. But it is a definitive decision to reorganize our global strategic alignment. » he comments. « We want to remain leaders in reliability and the environment, and our campaign in Formula 1 was becoming less and less useful for us. »

« Mario Theissen has been in charge of our motorsports program since 1999. During this period (10 years), we have achieved great successes, including in F1. I am therefore very sincerely grateful to Mario Theissen for this superb work. »

Mario Theissen, for his part, who at first supplied BMW engines to Williams and then fully involved himself in the newly created BMW Sauber F1 Team, was understanding: « Of course for us, employees in Hinwil or Munich, this F1 season is just a temporary misstep compared to our last three fantastic seasons. »

« But I can completely understand why this decision was made, and we will now focus heavily on the last races of the year to demonstrate our fighting spirit and say goodbye to F1 in the best way possible. »

Dr. Klaus Draeger, member of the board of directors responsible for development at the Munich-based company, admitted that the poor results of the BMW Sauber F1 Team this season played a role in the decision-making: « It took us only three years to become a top team, and this season, we will be unable to reach our goal. »

« Nevertheless, our 10 years of experience in Formula 1 have had a very positive impact on the development of the company and our engineers. We have raced thanks to thousands of technical and technological innovations as well as the competitive spirit of our drivers. All of this has helped us in the design of production cars. »

BMW leaving Formula 1, there are now only 12 teams registered for the 2010 Championship.