Krack plays down swirling Audi rumours

Mike Krack has denied raging speculation that he could be the next big F1 appointment made by Audi.

Sauber’s new 100 percent team owner announced this week that it has acquired former Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto - who will be both chief operating officer and chief technical officer.

Andreas Seidl and Oliver Hoffmann have been ousted, and although he appears as the nominal team boss in FIA press conferences, Alessandro Alunni Bravi is actually just ’team representative’.

It was reported recently that although Seidl and Hoffmann were warring behind the scenes, both of them agreed that Mike Krack should be wooed as team boss.

Currently the team boss at Aston Martin, Krack has worked at Sauber before, and he’s even been part of the Audi-related Volkswagen group’s motor racing activities with the Porsche sports car team.

Bravi said at Spa-Francorchamps that Binotto will decide who the team boss is.

"I think Mattia starts on the first of August," he said. "He will have time to understand if the current management team and the entire organisational structure is what is necessary to bring our group up to F1 speed."

When asked in Belgium about the Audi rumours, and a whisper that he recently visited Sauber’s Hinwil headquarters, Krack played it all down.

"I think a lot of this comes about because I worked there for a very long time," he told the Mirror. "I have a lot of friends still there and I see these friends from time to time.

"Maybe there’s an element of people putting one and one together - why is he in Switzerland? Because the godfather of my son is working there. If I have friends there, I cannot abandon my friends because of that."

Krack insists his focus at the moment is on Aston Martin.

"I have here the project of a lifetime, where you have someone investing so much to become a big team and to be part of that is an opportunity for everybody," said the Luxembourger. "So my focus is on this project.

"’25, and ’26 is a huge challenge in front of us. That is where my thoughts are."