BMW has confirmed that it is to quit F1 at the end of the 2009 season, becoming the second major manufacturer to leave the sport in barely eight months.

An emergency press conference called at BMW’s headquarters in Munich confirmed the news, although the manufacturer will continue with its motorsport programme elsewhere.

The decision to restructure its motorsport plans was made following a board meeting on Tuesday, with a statement revealing that ‘resources freed up as a result are to be dedicated to the development of new drive technologies and projects in the field of sustainability’.

“Of course, this was a difficult decision for us, but it’s a resolute step in view of our company’s strategic realignment,” Dr. Norbert Reithofer, Chairman of the Board of Management of BMW AG, said. “Premium will increasingly be defined in terms of sustainability and environmental compatibility. This is an area in which we want to remain in the lead.

“In line with our Strategy Number ONE, we are continually reviewing all projects and initiatives to check them for future viability and sustainability. Our Formula One campaign is thus less a key promoter for us.

“Mario Theissen has been in charge of our motor sports program since 1999. We have scored a large number of successes in this period, including some in Formula One racing. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Mario Theissen and his team for this,”

Having been an engine supplier to Williams for a number of years, BMW purchased the Sauber team in 2005 and entered a team under its own banner in 2006 – showing gradual improvement before the 2008 campaign, when Robert Kubica took BMW’s maiden win and finished fourth in the championship standings.

However, rather than build on that performance, BMW has struggled this season following the introduction of new regulations and currently lie down in eighth place in the standings with just eight points.

A fading BMW-Sauber – which until a few races ago had threatened to usurp McLaren-Mercedes as F1’s second force – now faces a fight to stave off the threats of Toyota, Renault and Red Bull Racing over the remainder of the 2008 campaign.

BMW-Sauber has admitted that it is at a loss to explain its poor performance in last weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix – a race in which the squad produced by some margin its worst showing of the 2008 season to-date.

Not only did the Munich and Hinwil-based concern surrender its second place in the constructors’ world championship to McLaren-Mercedes, but neither Robert Kubica nor Nick Heidfeld seemed to have any great pace at all as the duo finished respectively eighth and tenth in Budapest – the former slipping a full four places back from his second row starting spot.

“That was a difficult race,” Kubica reflected with a hint of understatement. “We were very slow, and I was struggling with the overall grip of the car. I had massive oversteer and could not really push. I was trying hard to keep the car on the track. Anyway, one point is better than nothing.”

“My start wasn’t perfect, but okay,” added Heidfeld, who came home just under 20 seconds adrift of his team-mate after running an audacious one-stop strategy in a valiant bid to make up for his poor grid position. “As I had hoped, I was able to overtake three cars on the first lap, but later it became more difficult than expected to race with the heavy car.

“We went for a one-stop strategy, so my car was almost full of fuel at the start and I also had to take care of the tyres. I couldn’t match the pace of the cars in front of me. Now we have to analyse the lack of race pace – normally this is one of our strengths!”

Both BMW Motorsport Director Dr Mario Theissen and the former Sauber squad’s technical director Willy Rampf agreed that much work must now be done if the team is to recover its early-season form – when it secured six rostrum finishes, including its breakthrough victory in Montreal, from just the opening seven grands prix of the campaign.

BMW Sauber team chief Mario Theissen admits his team may have to settle for third in the F1 standings after tough Hungary.

BMW Sauber team chief Mario Theissen has admitted that his team may now have to settle for third place in the Formula One championship standings following a tough weekend at the Hungaroring.

Having shown the pace to challenge both McLaren and Ferrari earlier in the campaign – as highlighted in dramatic fashion in Canada where Robert Kubica led home Nick Heidfeld for a 1-2 finish – the team endured a frustrating time in Hungary as Kubica could only manage eighth place and Heidfeld came home outside the points in tenth.

Indeed, since scoring a maximum 18 points in Montreal in early June, the Hinwil-based outfit has picked up just 20 points in the last four races. That compares to 38 points for Ferrari and 47 points for McLaren in the same period and means BMW now lies 21 points behind the Scuderia and ten points behind McLaren in the constructors’ championship.

With fourth placed Toyota a distant 55 points behind, BMW is all but assured of finishing at least third in the championship barring a remarkable turnaround in the F1 pecking order over the remainder of the campaign, and Theissen admitted that third could well be the best his team could hope for if it doesn’t improve on its performance in Budapest.

“Based on the performance and points yield of the Budapest weekend, you’d say certainly not,” he told the official F1 website when asked if the team can reclaim second place. “But naturally we will not twiddle our thumbs, as we still have developments in the pipeline – aerodynamic as well as mechanical. We will definitely not stop the development of the F1.08 because of one unsatisfying result.”

Theissen added that even days after race took place, the team was still scratching its head to find out what had led to its loss of competitiveness.

“In the last two years we have been on the podium, so there must be another explanation behind this disappointing performance,” he said. “We were not just slow, we were also inconsistent. Like at Ferrari, we also witnessed that one car was doing much better than the other.

“There was something out there that we did not understand.”