Audi Sport Team Rosberg: Change of leadership at the double champion

For the second time after 2017, Audi Sport Team Rosberg achieved a double in the 2019 DTM: overall victory in the drivers’ and team’ championships. After 25 years at the helm of Team Rosberg, Arno Zensen retired during the winter break. His successor is the former Sports Director Kimmo Liimatainen.

“There is of course a bit of melancholy in this farewell, but at some point it is just time to go and make room for someone else,” said Arno Zensen at the handover of the business to Kimmo Liimatainen at the beginning of February. The Finn, who started his collaboration with Team Rosberg as a young up-and-coming driver in 2000, was most recently Sports Director in the team of former Formula 1 World Champions Keke and Nico Rosberg.

“Arno (Zensen) has steered the ship well and safely all these years. Of course I look at our operation very closely, but there will be no dramatic changes,” says Kimmo Liimatainen. “As in the past, we’ll be guided by what we need to succeed and act accordingly,” says the new team boss. After winning the drivers’ and teams’ championships last year the sporting objectives are very clear for Liimatainen as well: “Of course we want to defend both titles successfully.”

With the two-time DTM Champion and title defender René Rast and veteran Jamie Green, the most successful team duo of Audi DTM drivers in the past three years will again compete for Audi Sport Team Rosberg in 2020. Their race engineers remain Florian Rinkes and Erich Baumgärtner. The Italian Nicola Palarchi remains Technical Director.

“Above all, we will miss Arno (Zensen) as a judge of character and with his great overview,” says René Rast. “But Kimmo (Liimatainen) will grow into it as well, and after his many years with Team Rosberg he already knows the day-to-day business of the sport very well anyway,” says the DTM Champion.

Team Rosberg has been competing in the DTM as the Audi factory team since 2006. It was founded in 1994 by former Formula 1 World Champion Keke Rosberg, who himself sat at the wheel in the first season. Nico Rosberg, 2016 Formula 1 World Champion, also gained his first racing experience in his father’s team. Since his retirement from racing, he has supported it as a representative.

Together with its subsidiary TRE (Team Rosberg Engineering), the company has specialized in engineering services for the automotive industry in addition to racing at its headquarters in Neustadt an der Weinstraße. TRE has state-of-the-art test benches and its own simulator.


Most important successes of Team Rosberg

1st place DTM drivers’ championship: 2017, 2019, 2020 (all Audi)
1st place DTM team classification: 2017, 2019 (both Audi)
1st place German Formula 3 Championship: 2002
1st place BMW Formula ADAC Championship: 2002
1st place Rookie classification BMW Formula ADAC Championship: 2004