F1 faces a struggle to hold on to its mantle as the world’s premier motorsport series as two major car manufacturers have announced that they are heading to the electric world of Formula E.  

Mercedes announced that it will be entering the Formula E Championship with a team in 2019 and just a few days later Porsche has also said it will join the electric racing series for the 2019 season. The moves cast some doubt about where leading car manufacturers see the future of motorsport and whether they will maintain F1 investment levels.

The announcements also mean that other areas of motorsport will suffer. Mercedes entry into Formula E comes at the expense of the German DTM series which it will leave at the end of the 2018 season. There is now some speculation that Audi and BMW may also reconsider their involvement. 

Meanwhile Porsche has said, “Beginning in 2019, Porsche will compete with a factory team in the Formula E Championship. As a result, the company will with great regret end its involvement in the LMP1 class of the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) at the end of the 2017 season. At the same time, Porsche will continue to focus its attention on international GT racing, campaigning the 911 RSR in the GT class of the FIA World Endurance Championship.”

The move means that Toyota is currently the only confirmed LMP1-H manufacturer for the 2018 Le Mans 24 Hours race.

Meanwhile Formula E appears to go from strength to strength with manufacturers such as BMW, Audi, Jaguar, Renault, Faraday Future, and DS already on the grid. With such heavy investment in this branch of the sport it, also seems likely that it will attract headline F1 drivers in the near future.