Audi Sport teams ready for DTM start

When the race trucks of the teams start heading for Hockenheim this Wednesday, the Audi Sport teams, Abt Sportsline, Phoenix and Rosberg, are looking back on some intensive weeks. Following the DTM pre-season tests at the beginning of April, all eight Audi RS 5 DTM cars were completely dismantled once more. Every part was checked before the race cars consisting of some 4,000 single parts were assembled again and fitted with the race engines for the 2016 season.

ABT Sportsline has been active for Audi Sport in the DTM since 2004. Phoenix and Rosberg have been competing in the popular touring car series for the four rings since 2006 and thus for more than ten years as well. Still, all three teams have optimized their processes for a DTM weekend once more last winter, analyzed data for hours on end, and invested in their technical equipment. 

“In the DTM, even the smallest details matter,” says Hans-Jürgen Abt, Team Director of Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline. “We optimally prepared and are all fired up to clinch another DTM title for Audi – it would be our sixth one.”

ABT is the DTM master of quick pit stops, and for good reason. The choreography of the tire change which, ideally, takes less than three seconds and involves 13 mechanics is practiced in Kempten several times a week. Before the first race weekend, the squad practiced nearly 800 pit stops and spent many hours in the outfit’s own gym.