Statement by Dr. Klaus Draeger, Member of the Board of Management of BMW AG, Development, at the Press Conference on the Realigment of BMW AG's Motor Sports Activities

Ladies and Gentlemen, BMW and motor sports: These two things have a
long-standing tradition and simply belong together. Be it in motorcycle,
touring car, sports car, rally or Formula One and Formula Two racing,
BMW has amassed successes around the globe. Promoting talent has always
been a priority for us. In 1991, Formula sports saw the beginning of a
joint talent promotion campaign by BMW and ADAC. Formula One drivers
like Sebastian Vettel, Nico Rosberg, Timo Glock, Adrian Sutil, Ralf
Schumacher and Christian Klien learned the basics of Formula racing
from this program. BMW is clearly the most successful brand in the
24-hour race around the Nürburgring's north circuit. In 1980, BMW
announced the company's entry into Formula One racing as an engine
supplier. The partnership lasted until 1986. Then BMW joined WilliamsF1
on the starting grid in the 2000 season. Gerhard Berger was the BMW
Motorsport director at the time. Mario Theissen was nominated to assist
him soon thereafter. We have scored 10 wins with the BMW WilliamsF1
Team. In the middle of 2005, BMW acquired the Swiss team Sauber and
took to the starting grid under its own steam. Spearheaded by BMW
Motorsport Director Mario Theissen, in 2008, the new BMW Sauber F1 Team
established itself as one of the top three teams. These are just a few
chapters of BMW's motor sports history. This goes to show that our
decision to end our Formula One campaign was anything but easy. Formula
One racing had always been the perfect platform for BMW to showcase
important brand values. We did this for years and transferred Formula
One technology to series production more resolutely than any other
manufacturer. The most recent findings obtained from Formula One racing
to be applied to series production will be our KERS expertise. However,
our planned cost reduction will cause component standardization and
homologation to increase, and thus will set certain limits on our
engineers' creativity. This doesn't necessary correspond to our belief
of what's ideal. In times of economic and societal change, we must
remain capable of taking action and being flexible. We have now paid
tribute to this fact. Our ten years of Formula One experience have had
a deep impact on our development engineers. We have racing to thank for
numerous technological innovations which can be found in our
mass-produced vehicles today. The main reason for this decision was not
our current performance in Formula One racing or the general economic
situation. It was solely the company's strategic realignment. Of
course, our decision to discontinue our Formula One campaign will have
an effect on our employees. Since we only made this decision yesterday,
I trust that you will understand that I cannot give you any more
precise information on this matter yet. We will develop and assess
various scenarios and do our best to find solutions for our employees
in Hinwil and those involved in the Formula One project in Munich and
Landshut. Most importantly, we are aware of the responsibility we
shoulder and will inform staff as soon as we can make a clear
statement. We will continue our touring car and Formula BMW racing
campaigns in 2010. This will be supplemented by our participation in
ALMS and endurance races as well as our increasing activity in
close-to-production customer sports. As before, these activities will
be supervised by Mario Theissen. I would like to take this opportunity
to express my personal thanks to our motor sports director Mario
Theissen for his commitment and successes as well. Furthermore, we will
naturally continue our international motorcycle racing program, focusing
on the super bike world championship series. I would like to underscore
what Mr. Reithofer just said: Sustainability is becoming increasingly
important. As a responsible premium manufacturer, we want to address
this issue even more extensively than before. What this means for our
products is that: They will be developed and built in line with the
principle of sustainability across all development stages.
Technological innovations will b e accelerated even more, in order to
constantly make our vehicles more efficient. You will see a product of
sustainable development at the IAA in Frankfurt in a few weeks in the
form of a concept car. The BMW EfficientDynamics Vision will
demonstrate how efficient a sports car can be. It will also prove that
sustainability does not apply to the drive train alone, but to design
and materials as well. Anyone who takes a closer look at this concept
car will understand the direction in which we are developing our
technology. And it will become evident that we will have to dedicate
more human and financial resources to this type of development work.
Ladies and Gentlemen, BMW has always been active in the field of motor
sports, and this will not change. We will maintain our outstanding
tradition in touring car and Formula BMW racing over the long term. We
will promote framework conditions that establish motor sports as the
arrowhead of innovations that trickle down to future mass-produced
cars. New drive concepts are just one example. BMW will continue to
showcase sheer driving pleasure on the racetrack. Thank you!