The consortium of German carmakers may look to be in pole position for mapmaker HERE, but no-one told Baidu’s CEO he is out of the race.

Robin Li told Re/code: “We’re still interested. We only have the Chinese [mapping] data right now.” He then added: “We need the global mapping data going forward.”

According to reports last week, a consortium of Audi, BMW and Daimler is close to signing a final agreement with Nokia to acquire its mapping unit.

This latest report is interesting because Baidu still believes it has a chance of buying HERE.

However, bidding on its own might be too much for Baidu, which was previously allied with Uber. For a time, Uber was leading the race for HERE but its interest waned after it last month acquired mapping assets from Microsoft.

Li would not comment about the Uber relationship but when asked whether Baidu might seek another partner, he said intriguingly: “I cannot say too much about it because it’s not a done deal.”

Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche said last week it would make HERE’s software available to other carmakers as an open platform if an agreement is reached with Nokia, another sign of bullishness from the Daimler-backed consortium about acquiring HERE.