After Audi’s customer sports earthquake and the 24h race, it looked like Abt would switch DTM brands to Lamborghini in 2024: Has the wind now changed?
What’s next for the Abt team in the DTM in 2024? Back at the beginning of the year, the long-serving Audi team from Kempten took on a wider Lamborghini line-up on the Nürburgring-Nordschleife, before the Ingolstadt-based company announced in July that it would be scaling down its customer sport programme to basic support from next year – and caused an earthquake.
Is this clear that Abt will now also switch to the Huracan in the DTM? “We are in the process of finding something and want to commit quickly, but it is still too early to say anything”,
“It’s clear that we’ll be racing the Lamborghini in the 24 Hours next year,” he continues. “And in the DTM we are well on the way to being able to say quite soon where the journey is going. “
“You don’t just throw away a long Audi tradition “
The Abt team has set itself the target of the season finale at Hockenheim, which is on the agenda in one and a half weeks. And a surprise is in the offing: Because while it already seemed clear to many after the events of the past months that Abt will also switch to Lamborghini in the DTM,
“The nice thing is that both are brands from the group – and we somehow belong to this group. That is important for us”, “We have a long tradition with Audi. You don’t just throw that away. So we will weigh it up very carefully.”
Biermaier clarifies that he is having “excellent talks with both brands”. It is favourable that Abt has both Audi and Lamborghini – they recently offer tuning for the Urus – in their portfolio in the tuning sector, which is why an involvement with both brands would make sense from a marketing point of view.
Tomczyk praises Audi talks: “Very open, clear and direct “
What speaks for Audi and what for Lamborghini? “There are different issues, but that doesn’t just relate to the car, but to the overall constellation, also at Abt Sportsline,” says Biermaier. Does the Audi decision play a role in this, that in addition to the cancellation of a financial support, the works squad will also be dissolved and the GT3 programme will be phased out in the long term?
“Certainly one thinks about what will happen in the medium term,” says Biermaier, “but in the short term it doesn’t have much influence.” Instead, issues like “tradition, performance, support and other factors” play a role.
“It also has to be said that the talks are very open and very clear and direct,” says Tomczyk in praise of the communication with those responsible at Audi. “Of course, that has to do with our years of working together. That helps in situations like this.” In addition, Audi’s Head of Customer Sport Chris Reinke and Audi’s Head of Motorsport Rolf Michl have even worked at Abt in the past – which means they have a shared history.
What speaks against Lamborghini change in the DTM
At any rate, despite Audi’s news of doom in the summer, there are likely to be some teams that want to stick with Audi cars, partly due to the long GT3 tradition and the relationship of trust between Audi Sport Customer Racing and the teams that has grown over the years.
Apart from that, SSR Performance has positioned itself as the top DTM team with the Italians after the brand change from Porsche to Lamborghini – and also has a good standing in Sant’Agata due to its professional approach and financial possibilities. The question is whether a switch to the Italian brand in the DTM would make sense at all at the moment, especially as the R8 LMS GT3 is a known quantity and they have the cars at their disposal.
In addition, with sports marketing boss Harry Unflath, they have one of the best people in the paddock in their own ranks when it comes to finding sponsors, which means they can at least compensate somewhat for the lack of financial support from the manufacturer.
Despite Audi’s driver squad reduction: Abt drivers could stay
But what role does the reduction of the Audi driver squad play? Not a big one, because Kelvin van der Linde is directly contracted to Abt anyway and has not been part of the squad at all since the beginning of 2023. And the deal with Audi Sport driver Ricardo Feller also came about via Abt partner Scherer.
The group operates numerous car dealerships in Germany and has taken over the traditional Audi team Phoenix. As Abt has a contract with Scherer with regard to Feller, who also drives for Scherer PHX, a further cooperation without Audi would also be possible.
“We are also in talks with the drivers – and very happy with both drivers,” Biermaier hints at a possible continuation. “We are setting up our team right now and are very confident that we will get everything wrapped up before Hockenheim. “
