Finishing line

While much has been written about the brand’s 2026 Formula 1 debut, the Audi Sport customer racing program continued to deliver the goods in 2024, chalking up more than 200 victories worldwide.

Racing across GT2, GT3, GT4 and TCR categories, Audi Sport customer racing continued at fever pitch despite the fact that Audi’s own racing commitments are coming to an end after 15 successful years, with privateer teams supported by the program winning 52 championship titles in overall or class rankings during season 2024.

In addition to these victories, Audi Sport also continued its extraordinary success story in 24-hour racing, winning its fourth and seventh titles in the Dubai and Nürburgring 24-hour races respectively, as well as taking out the Abu Dhabi 12 Hours.

“What our customer teams have achieved this year is more than remarkable and makes us proud,” says Chris Reinke, Head of Audi Sport customer racing. 

“Over 50 racing titles worldwide and more than 200 individual victories in overall or class rankings show just how strong our customer teams and their drivers were.” 

It was another year of milestones for Audi Sport customer racing and the mighty R8 LMS GT3 in particular, with the car now accounting for no less than 19 outright 24-hour victories since 2009 and Audi Sport becoming the most successful manufacturer in the GT3 era since 2009, ahead of Porsche, BMW, Mercedes and Ferrari in the Nürburgring 24 Hours classic.

Victories were achieved across five continents, with the brand racking up its 500th racing title worldwide.

The Audi RS 3 LMS which competes in TCR classes globally, continued its winning ways, contributing another 21 titles in 2024, including the TCR Italy title and the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge in the USA. Racing in the GT4 class, the R8 LMS added five more titles, while the GT2 category contested by Audi Sport’s car based on the R8 Spyder, wrapped up titles in Belgium and Spain.

But it was the R8 LMS in GT3 guise that once again accounted for the bulk of the wins, building on what has been an outstanding performance in world motorsport since its very first appearance.

Of the 24 championship titles recorded by the R8 LMS GT3 this year, six were class titles in the Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS and two more in the Asian counterpart of this SRO racing series. Other titles fell to the R8 in the UK and USA as well as the aforementioned endurance victories which saw Christopher Haase, Gilles Magnus, Simon Reicher, Markus Winkelhock and Mike Zhou win in Dubai and Ricardo Feller, Dennis Marschall, Christopher Mies and Frank Stippler win Audi’s seventh Nurburgring 24-hour crown.

Of course this ongoing success for the R8 GT3 is bitter sweet in so far as this year saw the end of production for all variants of the Audi R8 LMS. Head of Audi Sport customer racing, Chris Reinke, handed over the last GT3 model built to Austrian racer and long-time Audi Sport customer, Michael Doppelmayr, who was also another class title winner this year with a Pro-Am victory in the 24H Series powered by Hankook.

Despite the end of production, the R8 will continue to terrorise the opposition on tracks globally for years to come, with the homologations of all current racing models from Audi’s customer racing program valid until at least 2030.