Turns out the rumors we heard a few weeks back about Audi throwing in the towel with LeMans and WEC are true as they announced today that they will be focusing their effort on Formula E. The manufacturer confirmed that all 300 employees of its Audi Sport motorsport arm would be retained, but their focus would switch to Formula E when the 2016 season ends.
Chairman of the board of management Rupert Stadler told his staff this morning: “We’re going to contest the race for the future on electric power. As our production cars are becoming increasingly electric, our motorsport cars, as Audi’s technological spearheads, have to even more so.”
This departure from WEC, ends an 18 year long chapter in prototype racing where they won LeMans a whopping 13 times. This makes Audi the second most successful manufacturer (after Porsche) of all time.
They will turn their focus to the ABT Schaeffler Audi Sport team and although they have been using their name, Audi will now be providing ‘financial and technical support’ for the team.
Following this, Audi will ramp up its involvement towards becoming a fully-fledged factory team. ABT will become an official Audi Formula E team for the 2017/2018 season, which will begin next October.
