Handshake, press release drafted — insider reveals how Red Bull's Porsche deal collapsed in 2022

A joint Formula 1 venture between Red Bull and Porsche came closer to reality than almost anyone knew, with a handshake between the two companies’ top executives and a draft press release already in place before Red Bull pulled out at the last moment in the summer of 2022.

Fritz Enzinger, who headed Porsche Motorsport and the Volkswagen Group’s motorsport activities at the time, provided the most detailed public account yet of the failed deal in an interview recorded on 29 July 2026 for a members’ roundtable on the Formel1.de YouTube channel.

Enzinger confirmed that VW CEO Oliver Blume and Red Bull co-founder Dietrich Mateschitz had already exchanged a handshake — the clearest signal yet of how advanced the talks had become. A joint announcement had been planned for the Austrian Grand Prix weekend at Spielberg, or the race immediately after. “It is true that the plan was to go public at Spielberg or at the race after that,” Enzinger said.

The announcement was delayed, he explained, because certain power-unit regulatory details had not been fully resolved. Porsche and VW wanted specific rule changes confirmed before committing publicly, so both sides agreed to wait. “We simply left some breathing room and said: ‘OK, then we’ll wait until the next race’,” Enzinger recalled.

That wait became permanent. Enzinger described a sudden “change of direction” at Red Bull in the decisive days that followed, without speculating on the precise reasons. He noted, however, that Mateschitz “was already in very, very poor health by then” — the Red Bull co-founder died in October 2022 — and that negotiations had to involve not only the Austrian shareholders, who held 49 per cent of Red Bull GmbH, but also the Thai majority owners. “And that was when the switch simply happened,” he said.

Enzinger also pushed back on reports that Porsche had been holding parallel talks with other teams during the same period, calling those rumours fiction. “During that phase, Porsche only ever spoke to Red Bull,” he said. “From Porsche’s side, there really was only one objective: to enter Formula 1 with Red Bull.”

Red Bull ultimately moved in a different direction entirely, partnering with Ford for its power-unit project ahead of the new engine regulations. Porsche has continued to explore an F1 entry through other avenues. The collapse of the deal remains one of the most significant what-ifs in the sport’s recent history.