International customer racing support: On call worldwide

A good race car is one thing, an appropriate level of service another task. With Audi, customers in GT3 racing can rely on high-caliber race car engineering as well as a comprehensive service concept.

From the beginning, Audi concentrated on providing its customers with a comprehensive range of services for the R8 LMS – on a worldwide basis. Audi Sport customer racing developed a multilevel concept to adequately support the more than 130 race cars built.

While quattro GmbH is dedicated to its European customers, four satellites are responsible for this task overseas. Nova Engineering looks after the customers active in Japan since 2011, Audi Sport customer racing supports the 20-plus race cars contesting the Audi R8 LMS Cup established in 2012 as well as other customer commitments in Asia. The Melbourne Performance Centre is responsible for the events in Australia and New Zealand. In the current season, six teams race with Audi ‘down under’. Audi Sport customer racing North America is the contact for customers in the United States. Two high-caliber sports car series, the Pirelli World Challenge, in which six Audis compete, and the Tudor United SportsCar Championship, are held in North America including Canada. A substantial number of race cars are also entered in club racing in the USA.

Another stage of the concept is the deployment of customer racing advisors from Germany to races worldwide. They support teams at the track with race car set-up, answer questions about maintenance and repairs and many other issues. At the larger championships and selected events, Audi Sport customer racing is also represented in the paddock with its own service vehicles.

Audi Sport customer racing has been based at Audi’s new facility in Neuburg since May 2015. The logistic center is also housed here. The parts inventory and store currently contain around 5,000 different components. The arrival of the new model will see this stock inventory expand to around 6,500 parts. During the 2014 season, around 95,500 parts were dispatched in more than 1,300 deliveries to 58 customers on four continents. If 2012 is taken as reference, the delivery volume of has doubled within two years.