BYD aims for F1 and WEC

BYD is looking at Formula One and the FIA World Endurance Championship at the same time, which means it is not just flirting with racing but weighing two of the most expensive shop windows in global car culture. People familiar with the talks told Bloomberg in March that BYD was considering either building a team or buying into an existing one, and had not made a final decision. (scmp.com) Formula One is the open-wheel series with races from Miami to Monaco, and the FIA World Endurance Championship is the series built around long-distance races like the 24 Hours of Le Mans. BYD is studying both because each offers a different kind of global exposure: Formula One sells weekly television reach, while endurance racing sells engineering credibility over 6, 8, and 24-hour races. (formula1.com) (fiawec.com) The timing is not random. Formula One’s 2026 engine rules push the series further toward electric power, with battery output rising from 120 kilowatts to 350 kilowatts and braking recovery climbing to about 8.5 megajoules per lap. (formula1.com) (fia.com) That matters for BYD because the company built its name on batteries first and cars second. Its 2025 annual report was published on March 27, 2026, after a year in which BYD sold 4.6 million new-energy vehicles and pushed overseas exports past 1 million for the first time. (bydglobal.com) (filingreader.com) The overseas push is the key to the whole story. Reuters reported on March 30 that BYD told analysts it was “highly confident” it could reach 1.5 million overseas sales in 2026, which turns brand recognition in Europe, Latin America, and other export markets into a hard sales problem, not a vanity project. (msn.com) Formula One offers a giant audience for that push. Formula One said its global fanbase reached 827 million in 2025, up 12 percent in a year, and 43 percent of fans were under 35. (formula1.com 1) (formula1.com 2) The catch is cost. Bloomberg’s reporting, carried by the South China Morning Post, said a full Formula One entry can run as high as about US$500 million a season, which is why BYD is also looking at buying an existing operation instead of starting from a blank sheet of paper. (scmp.com) The FIA World Endurance Championship gives BYD a second route that may fit its technology story even more neatly. The Hypercar rules now run through 2032, and from 2026 an energy-recovery system becomes mandatory for newly homologated Le Mans Hypercars, which pulls the category closer to the hybrid systems BYD already sells in huge numbers on the road. (fiawec.com) (racer.com) Endurance racing is also crowded with the exact brands BYD wants to be compared with. The 2026 FIA World Endurance Championship entry list includes 14 manufacturers, and the 2026 24 Hours of Le Mans entry list has 62 cars, which means a BYD program would land in the middle of a factory-heavy field rather than in a niche series. (24h-lemans.com) (fia.com) There is also a political angle inside Formula One. FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem told Le Figaro in 2025 that a Chinese manufacturer would be the next logical step for the championship after Cadillac, and Bloomberg’s March report said that kind of welcome has been noticed inside the sport. (scmp.com) BYD has not announced a program, a team, or a start date. What exists today is a company with more than 4 million annual vehicle sales, more than 1 million exports, and a battery-heavy technology stack studying two championships that are both moving toward more hybrid power and bigger global audiences. (bydglobal.com) (formula1.com) (fiawec.com)