Pischetsrieder leaves VW

[lightweight]

Volkswagen's chief executive Bernd Pischetsrieder is to leave Europe's biggest carmaker at the end of this year. He will be replaced by Audi's chief executive Martin Winterkorn. The news is a big surprise as Pischetsreider had a contract extending to 2012. Winterkorn is a protege of VW chairman Ferdinand Piech, who has been at odds with Pischetsrieder for some years. No reason for the change has been given. The board of the company will meet later this month to confirm Winterkorn's appointment.

The consequences of the move are likely to be many and varied and it will be interesting to see how the company's attitude towards motorsport changes - if at all - as a result of the move. At the moment VW is very active in different kinds of motorsport with the Audi brand in sports cars and touring cars, VW in rally raids, Seat in the World Touring Car Championship and Skoda in rallying. The Lamborghini and Bugatti brands are not currently employed in the sport.

There are also questions about whether or not this will have any effect on Porsche's influence in the running of VW as Porsche owns 21.2% of the company, has an option to buy another 3.9% and could increase that to 29.9%. If Porsche goes beyond that it would have to make a takeover bid for VW. Interestingly VW owns 13% of its own common shares but the situation is confused by restrictions on the number of votings shares that are held by a single investor.

http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns17726.html

[Kooper]

Winterkorn is a protege of VW chairman Ferdinand Piech, who has been at odds with Pischetsrieder for some years.

I always thought Pischetsrieder was hand-picked by Piech. Guess I was wrong about that one.

[lightweight]

I always thought Pischetsrieder was hand-picked by Piech.

That was my impression also, but the press source states otherwise...

[henk4]

it was already strongly rumoured during the Geneva 2006 exhibition that he would leave, nevertheless he got reinstated, but not with the results expected obviously.

[VtecMini]

I heard a rumour that he left because he was sick of seeing the 1.8T losing races...

[Distress]

What is the purpose of Porsche taking control of Audi? I fear that this may not be a good thing, depending on the way you look at it. A rumor is that Audi's Quattro Spyder concept car was rejected by Ferdinand Piech, because being a member of the Porsche family he did not want Audi to produce a competitor to Porsche. It seamed with Piech top of the Volkswagen group, they saw no chance to produce such car. The concept had prototype mules biased for production.

A year after Piech retired Audi unveiled the Le Mans concept.

Further rumor is that Audi's R8 isn't the last of planned mid-engined sports coupes. Hate to see this not come true.

[henk4]

What is the purpose of Porsche taking control of Audi?

they could re-badge the R10 and get Porsche back in LMP1 and win. It will save them the embarrassment of having to develop their own diesel engine, which Porsche's current chief considered to have become a success only because of the fiscal policies of a number of European countries...