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And this coincides with, in my opinion at least, the current LMP1 regs and their financial cost growing stale among the teams. When you have Toyota and Porsche agreeing in principal to limit chassis development, that should've maybe been a smoke signal that something was up.
This doesn't guarantee that either one will leave after this year. But it's a little too convenient in my view that we have critics pointing out that the LMP1 regs as they exist right now are unsustainable from a cost standpoint and with no one else wanting to come in right now, with dieselgate happening. IMO, it's just an excuse for VAG to cut losses and wait for the new rules cycle, which is the approach everyone else is taking. Especially when you consider that dieselgate hasn't hurt VAG's sales of diesel cars outside of NA (which were never high there anyways and all the fixed cars have quickly sold out), and that most VAG divisions are still making huge profits.
I still think it's more that politics within Volkswagen Group and between VAG and the ACO/FIA are at play, and it's probably more sensible to let the current ACO LMP1 regs run their course and wait for 2020. There's probably more to this whole story than what Audi Sport and others have shared publicly, and that's stuff that Hindy has also talked about with the Audi Sport pull out.
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