The swan tune season for Group Audi Sport‘s rally raid programme has come to a sooner finish than deliberate. Regardless of successful the Dakar Rally in January, a scarcity of appropriate elements for the Audi RS Q e-tron E2 have pressured them to close down after only one spherical of the 2024 World Rally-Raid Championship.
The RS Q e-tron, the one electrical car within the W2RC’s premier Final class, depends on intricate elements which might be sourced from a really restricted pool of distributors, a few of which take so long as two years to provide. A lot of the elements have been used up throughout a disastrous 2023 Dakar Rally during which all three Audi drivers crashed out or suffered extreme mechanical failures, adopted by an intensive testing routine to diagnose what went fallacious. Though Audi lastly broke by means of to win the 2024 Dakar with Carlos Sainz, attrition took its toll on his team-mates Mattias Ekström and Stéphane Peterhansel and additional depleted their sources.
Audi was already set to shut the workforce after 2024 to deal with System One, the place they’re set to produce engines for Sauber in 2026, however hoped to exit by successful the W2RC as nicely. Sainz’s Dakar win, the fourth of his profession, gave Audi a thirteen-point edge within the producer’s standings over twice reigning champion Toyota.
Q Motorsport, who supplies technical assist, has expressed curiosity in racing the RS Q e-trons following Audi’s exit.
“We’ve got made historical past with this success and attracted plenty of consideration worldwide,” Audi racing boss Rolf Michl said. “It was a hard-earned and very emotional victory for a extremely motivated workforce. Group Audi Sport and Q Motorsport confirmed exemplary workforce spirit in a very robust version of this difficult motorsport occasion. After setbacks final season, we managed to show the tide and prevailed this time round in opposition to numerous robust groups and superb drivers. My thanks go to everybody concerned, whose exhausting work made this profitable conclusion to the programme doable.”
With their exit, Audi departs the rally raid world after three years with two general victories. They grew to become the primary electrical automobile to win a global rally when Peterhansel received the 2022 Abu Dhabi Desert Problem. Later that 12 months, Sainz set the quickest time outright amongst all automobiles on the Rallye du Maroc, although the RS Q e-tron E2—a slimmer and upgraded mannequin that made its début there—was not categorized within the T1 (Final) outcomes.
Sainz, Ekström, and Peterhansel haven’t revealed their plans for the remainder of the season, although every stay eligible for the championship and might compete in any class. Ekström did this in 2023 when he raced the Dakar for Audi earlier than switching to the T3 class (now Challenger) for the following three rounds, then returned for the finale. Peterhansel’s co-driver Édouard Boulanger has been linked to Nasser Al-Attiyah of Prodrive, who just lately cut up along with his navigator Mathieu Baumel, although neither have confirmed a partnership.
The Abu Dhabi Desert Problem, the following race within the championship, begins 26 February.
