While the title fight this year is yet to be resolved, with the myriad changes to regs, drivers and schedule for next season, it’s worth starting this thread now.
PROVISIONAL 2017 F1 CALENDAR
March 26 Australia (Melbourne) April 9 China (Shanghai) April 16 Bahrain (Sakhir) April 30 Russia (Sochi) May 14 Spain (Barcelona) May 28 Monaco June 11 Canada (Montreal)+ June 18 Europe (Baku) July 2 Austria (Red Bull Ring) July 9 Britain (Silverstone) July 23 Hungary (Hungaroring) July 30 Germany (Hockenheim)+ August 27 Belgium (Spa) September 3 Italy (Monza) September 17 Malaysia (Sepang) October 1 Singapore (Marina Bay) October 8 Japan (Suzuka) October 22 United States (Austin) November 5 Mexico (Mexico City) November 12 Brazil (Interlagos)+ November 26 Abu Dhabi (Yas Marina)
Joerg is a good guy to work for and one of the few that I would consider working for again. Very good at getting things done and as a result has been involved in designing many high achieving race cars.
So Audi’s possible move into F1, then the emissions mess and deciding to stay in LMP a bit longer has resulted in them pulling out of that, it all looks a bit of a mess.
Given that they’ve been running a radically new car this year, I think this must have been a relatively late stage decision to pull out of WEC. Cannot see them having put that R&D effort (which they seemed to expect to take a year or two to really get to its full potential) on a car they were only going to run for a single year.