As reported by Autosport's sister website Motorsport-Total.com back in May, Audi will not provide factory support to any of its customer teams across GT3 racing from next year.
This would primarily affect those squads that compete in the DTM as well as major endurance races such as the Spa 24 Hours and the Nurburgring 24 Hours.
Further, its pool of 14 works drivers, which includes Ricardo Feller, Markus Winkelhock, Patric Niederhauser and Christopher Mies, will be dissolved at the end of the current racing season.
The German manufacturer will also stop production of all its customer racing cars, including the GT3 and GT4 variants of the Audi R8 LMS and the RS3 LMS TCR car, after the first quarter of 2024. All orders placed until that point will be fulfilled by Audi.
However, as speculated previously, Audi has decided against completely shutting down its customer racing division. Instead, the R8 LMS GT3 and other customer cars will continue to remain homologated, with the Ingolstadt-based manufacturer offering a basic supply of spare parts until 2032.
The initial plan was indeed to discontinue Audi Sport Customer Racing entirely, with the board issuing instructions towards the end of last year to close the division after 2023.
But according to sources, after efforts from both Audi Sport boss Rolf Michl and customer racing head Chris Reinke, a decision was made around the Nurburgring 24 Hours to continue its involvement in customer racing in a reduced capacity. This was approved by the board of directors on Monday.
Source: Autosport