Recently appointed head of Audi Sport Customer Racing Chris Reinke is settling in nicely to his new role at the Spa 24 Hours, which he explains is a very different challenge to his time at the head of the brand’s LMP1 programme.
“When you take in all our customers, it’s 300 races instead of eight, 200 cars instead of two, so there’s lots to do, lots of new people to meet and different challenges,” he said. “In LMP1, it’s working at the pinnacle of technology and performance, here it’s all about delivering the service and reliability customers want at the right price.”
Both Reinke and Audi Sport head Dr Wolfgang Ulrich commented on the once-again active rumours of moves towards GT convergence from the FIA, including the proposals for a two-tier setup with ‘enhanced GT3’ cars.
“For Audi, LMP is about exploring the limits of technology, whereas GT racing has to pay for itself,” said Reinke. “We’re always open to possibilities and interesting business models, we see what BMW has done in the US and how Ferrari has linked the 488 GT3 and GTE cars very closely. But for the moment we are observers only.”
According to Dr Ullrich, the current round of convergence talks are “closer than we have been for a few years. But then we were close before and it didn’t happen, so I don’t know. Not just speaking for Audi, I think convergence would be a good thing for all the manufacturers involved in GT.”
Talks continue, too, on the long-proposed harmonisation of the DTM and Super GT rulebooks, with the only real holdout now being over engines. Super GT is set to switch to 2.0-litre, four-cylinder powerplants , but a similar move from DTM has been delayed until 2019 on the grounds of development costs.
There have also been suggestions of late that some of the three current DTM manufacturers are looking at scaling back their commitment (to the benefit of GT3 racing, according to one source). Ulrich stated that Audi’s commitment to the series is definite across the 2017 and 2018 seasons, with a decision on a 2019-21 commitment due to be made sometime during next year.
Ulrich also discussed Benoit Treluyer’s (above) absence from the Audi LMP1 squad at the Nurburgring due to a mountain-biking injury: “We straight away spoke to Andre [Lotterer] and Marcel [Fassler] and they were happy to race as two,” he said. “If we’d put another driver in, it would have been Rene [Rast], but we didn’t want to ruin his LMP2 campaign so we’d only have done it if absolutely necessary.” Treluyer hasn’t yet been 100% confirmed for the next WEC round, with doctors continuing to monitor his recovery.
Elsewhere on Friday, Pirelli motorsport boss Paul Hembery (above) was in the paddock, paying a visit to what is the biggest single event of the year for the Italian tyre firm, with 100 personnel looking after the supply of 13,000 tyres. Pirelli’s commitment to GT racing continues to deepen, with the recent news that it’ll be exclusive tyre supplier at the Bathurst 12 Hours from next year.
With the renewal of Pirelli’s F1 contract for another three years, it looks like we won’t be seeing the brand involved in a high-level tyre war in LMP classes anytime soon. “We’re not ruling anything out and actually about 40% of the activities we’re involved in are competitive. People come to us from time to time to ask us to get involved in certain projects, but we’d need to find the right partner to make it work. We have to be realistic, we can’t do everything.”
