Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline: 20 years in DTM with Audi

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04/16/2019
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Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline has the longest and most successful track record in the DTM. The tally of the Allgäu-based squad reflects five drivers’ titles and four teams’ titles – all of them with Audi.

The family-owned ABT Sportsline company and Audi have been successful partners ever since their joint super touring car days at the end of the 1990s. The outfit based in Kempten also paved Audi’s way back into the DTM at the beginning of the new millennium with a privately fielded Abt Audi TT-R. In 2004, it became Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline.

2019 marks the Abt squad’s 20th season with Audi in the DTM. With a little more luck, the squad led by team owner Hans-Jürgen Abt and Sport Director Thomas Biermaier could have won two more DTM drivers’ titles. In the 2016 season, the team was only four points short of clinching the title, and merely three in 2017. “Having missed out on winning the title by a very narrow margin in the last race twice in a row was very painful,” says Biermaier. “We analyzed what we’re able to improve and reorganized ourselves in many areas.”

Florian Modlinger has been the new technical director since last year. Michael Petit and Felix Fechner were deployed for the first time as race engineers in 2018. Mattias Ekström’s withdrawal from the DTM after 17 joint years in the series meant a turning point as well for the team that in Robin Frijns and Nico Müller is now putting the youngest DTM driver duo in Audi’s factory-backed lineup on the grid.

Alongside the DTM, ABT Sportsline partners with Audi in the Formula E electric racing series. 

Major successes of ABT Sportsline

1st DTM drivers’ classification: 2002, 2004, 2007, 2008, 2009 (all Audi)
1st DTM teams’ classification: 2004, 2007, 2011, 2016 (all Audi)
1st Formula E drivers’ classification: 2016/2017
1st German Supertouring Car Championship: 1999 (Audi)
1st ADAC GT Masters: 2009 drivers’, 2010 teams’ classification (both Audi)
1st ADAC Formel Masters: 2009
1st ADAC Formel Junior: 1991, 1992, 1996