It may seem like the 2025 F1 season just ended, and that’s because it just did, yet the 2026 season is about to start. Cars are being unveiled, and there’s a lot of excitement for Cadillac to join as the 11th team as well as for Audi to enter the grid with its own power unit, taking over the entire Sauber team to create a new factory entry. For a while, Porsche seemed poised to enter the series with Red Bull, but that didn’t come to fruition, with Ford instead taking on part of Red Bull’s power unit program. But there’s been no real discussion of BMW entering in any form. Should it?
Of course, BMW has a long history with F1, powering Brabham and others in the Eighties turbo era with some high strung engines. Then it reentered in 2000 with Williams as an engine supplier (pictured at top), staying with the team until the end of the 2005 season. Then with its purchase of the Sauber team in mid-2005—ironically the team now owned by Audi—BMW became a full-works team, with BMW Sauber F1 on the grid. The team scored a few podiums and one win with Robert Kubica in 2008, but sold back to Sauber at the end of the 2009 season. BMW hasn’t been involved with F1 since.
But now with unprecedented automaker involvement, should BMW consider rejoining the series? Its direct competitors from Germany, Mercedes and Audi, now have factory teams. Cadillac, an automaker that has aimed directly at BMW for decades now, has a new team that will have its own power unit in 2028, making it a factory team. Then, of course, there’s Ferrari. But Ford is also involved with both Red Bull teams, and not to mention Honda is going to power Aston Martin starting this year. Toyota is even getting involved as a sponsor of Haas, and who knows where that could lead.
The engine formula now is as much about technology and the future as it is about big power, two things that are staples of BMW’s current marketing and product plans. That said, F1’s engine formula revolves around a small-displacement V-6, which isn’t an engine configuration that relates to any of BMW’s current models. BMW is also heavily involved in sports car racing, which could reduce the appetite to rejoin. But so are Cadillac, Alpine, Ferrari, and Honda (with Acura in IMSA), and McLaren is set to head to WEC and LeMans next year. And if Audi has success with creating its own team based on Sauber, that will have to sting in Munich and spur them on to either rejoin F1 in short order or never enter again.
It seems like a real opportunity for BMW to get back in the sport, maybe as an engine supplier rather than a full team owner. Williams, its old partner, is currently a Mercedes customer team. Maybe it makes sense to partner there. Or McLaren, where BMW has had success powering the F1 on the road and at Le Mans, could drop Mercedes for a works BMW deal. I know there are no plans, and there are a lot of sensitivities in Munich around F1 and how it went last time, but now is the time to get back into the sport.
What do you think? Should BMW be back in F1? Let us know in the comments below.