Audi says that a decision has yet to be made about whether the company will exit LMP1 after the 2017 season.

Over the weekend, reports emerged suggesting that the Volkswagen Group had decided to stop Audi’s LMP1 programme in the wake of dieselgate. According to the firm’s head of motorsport Wolfgang Ullrich however, that’s just not true.

While speaking with Motorsport, Ullrich said “We have seen so many rumours in the press during the last years, and the good thing is in most cases the negative ones didn’t occur/”

“So I’m optimistically looking forward to the future. We are organising our race programme in the standard way, which is always in the autumn of the year. The meeting of the board where normally the motorsport programme is defined has not taken place yet, so nothing is decided,” he confirmed.

Ullrich also went on to defend the future of diesel engines, despite some automakers shying away from them and suggesting that they only have a limited lifespan.

“We think that the diesel engine is still one of the most efficient combustion engines you can get. They can be very clean, it’s just a question of working on it and developing it.  As long as efficiency is a key factor, we think the diesel in racing is still a good solution,” he said.

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