W Racing Team (known as Team WRT) is a Belgian auto racing team founded in 2009 by engineer and former head of Volkswagen Motorsport René Verbist, racing driver Vincent Vosse, and entrepreneur Yves Weerts. Between 2010 and 2022 the team campaigned Audi R8 LMSs in several international sports car series. In 2010 the team won the Belcar Drivers' and Teams' Championships, while in 2011 they won the Spa 24 Hours.[1] After winning multiple titles in various GT championships, WRT is considered to be one of the best teams worldwide in GT racing. In 2019 and 2020 WRT ran two Audi RS5 Turbo DTMs in the highly competitive DTM championship. In 2021 WRT added a full time LMP2 program, by entering an Oreca 07 in both the FIA World Endurance Championship and European Le Mans Series, and won the LMP2 class of the 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans. From 2023 on WRT switched their partnership in GT racing from Audi to BMW and will run the BMW M4 GT3. The team will also run two factory backed BMW M Hybrid V8s in the FIA World Endurance Championship Hypercar category from 2024.
 | |
| Founded | 2009 |
|---|---|
| Team principal(s) | Vincent Vosse René Verbist Yves Weerts |
| Current series | FIA World Endurance Championship GT World Challenge Europe Intercontinental GT Challenge |
| Former series | European Le Mans Series ADAC GT Masters Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters Blancpain GT Series FIA WTCR TCR Belgian Touring Car Series Andros Trophy FIA GT3 European Championship Belcar |
| Teams' Championships | 30 (last 2023 Endurance Trophy for LMP2 Teams) |
| Drivers' Championships | 29 (last 2023 Endurance Trophy for LMP2 Drivers) |
Racing history
edit2010–11: Beginning and early success
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Upon the team's founding in late 2009, WRT purchased three Audi R8 LMS race cars as part of being the official Belgian Audi motorsport importer. The trio of cars shared duties in 2010 between the national Belcar Endurance Championship, the French FFSA GT Championship (now GT Tour), and the mid-season Spa 24 Hours. The team had success from the start, finishing on the podium with at least one car in every Belcar race including two wins by Gregory Franchi and Anthony Kumpen and a third victory in a ten-hour endurance race at Circuit Zolder with François Verbist, Bert Longin, and Bill Bailly. Franchi and Kumpen locked up the Drivers' Championship, while WRT secured the Teams' Championship. Franchi also partnered with Stéphane Lémeret to earn two further podium finishes in FFSA GT. In addition to this program, two Volkswagen Scirocco GT24s were purchased for use in the Belgian Touring Car Series where the team were vice-champions in their category.
Following their first year's success, WRT expanded their program for 2011 by adding the FIA GT3 European Championship[2] and Blancpain Endurance Series to the schedule for their Audis. Once again success came early as WRT won the second of two races in the first event of the FIA GT3 Championship with Franchi partnering Enzo Ide. Their GT Tour program under the title of Team Audi France with French drivers David Hallyday and Stéphane Ortelli also earned its first victory for the team at Dijon-Prenois. In July WRT won the Spa 24 Hours in only their second attempt, with Franchi sharing the drive with factory Audi drivers Timo Scheider and Mattias Ekström.[1]
2012–18: Further expansion with Audi
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WRT announced further expansion of their program in 2012 with accepted entries in the FIA GT World Championship as the representatives of Audi.[3] They went on to finish third in the Teams standings, winning three races on the way. In 2013 WRT won both the Teams' and Drivers' Championship of the newly named FIA GT Series.
In 2014 WRT competed both in the Blancpain Endurance Series and Blancpain Sprint Series, successor of the FIA GT Series. They won both the Teams' and Drivers' Championship in the Blancpain GT Series as well as in the Blancpain Endurance Series. They also won the Teams' Championship in the Blancpain Sprint Series. In July 2014 they added a second win in the Spa 24 Hours with Laurens Vanthoor, René Rast and Markus Winkelhock at the wheel of an Audi R8 LMS. In 2015 they again won both Teams' and Drivers' championships in the Blancpain GT Series. They were also crowned Teams' Champions in the Sprint and Endurance Series. In May 2015 WRT achieved another major success by winning the 24 Hours of Nürburgring with the new version of the Audi R8 LMS (GT3).
In 2016, WRT made their debut in Touring car racing, running pair of Volkswagen Golfs in the TCR International Series under the Leopard Racing badge. Driving for the team were Stefano Comini and Jean-Karl Vernay. WRT also made their debut in the European Le Mans Series running a Ligier JS P2, but only at the 4 Hours of Spa. They won the TCR International Series Drivers' titles in both 2016 and 2017, with Comini and Vernay respectively. In 2018 and 2019 WRT participated in the World Touring Car Cup fielding a pair of Audi RS3 LMSs.
2019–20: Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters
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In 2018 WRT won the Bathurst 12 hour race with the Audi R8 LMS (GT3), at their first attempt. On 12 October 2018 WRT announced it would run a pair of Audi RS5 Turbo DTMs in the 2019 DTM season as a customer team.[4] They later announced Jonathan Aberdein and Pietro Fittipaldi, grandson of double Formula One World Champion Emerson Fittipaldi, as their two drivers for the season. Although not scoring a single podium, Aberdein was able to impress with several points scoring positions and finished the season in 10th place as the highest ranked rookie. In August 2019 WRT won the 2019 Suzuka 10 Hours, which was the 48th edition of the Summer Endurance Classic at Suzuka.
At the end of 2019, WRT announced an all new line-up for the 2020 DTM season consisting of 2016 Indy Lights champion Ed Jones and FIA Formula 3 driver Fabio Scherer. Later WRT announced they would enter a third car for Ferdinand Habsburg, who had previously been driving for Aston Martin. Before the season started Jones pulled out of the championship due to travel complications as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. He was subsequently replaced by Harrison Newey, who made his debut in the DTM. Habsburg managed to score his and the team's first podium finish as well as a pole position. As a result of Audi's exit at the end of the season it was decided that the Class One formula would be dropped and replaced by GT3 machinery. WRT ultimately decided not to enter the DTM in 2021.
2021–23: LMP2 Program
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After exiting the DTM, WRT announced their intention to enter the LMP2 class in the FIA WEC to prepare for an eventual program in the new LMDh formula. On 21 January the team officially announced it would enter the FIA WEC with an Oreca 07.[5] The drivers will be Robin Frijns, Ferdinand Habsburg and Charles Milesi. WRT later announced that they would also enter an Oreca 07 in the ELMS driven by Robert Kubica.[6] He will be joined by Louis Delétraz and Yifei Ye. The team once again was successful from the offset and won the first two races of the ELMS championship.
Team WRT decided to enter both cars at the 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans. After taking the lead during the first half of the race WRT was on course to score a sensational 1-2 finish on its Le Mans debut. However, at the start of the last lap car #41 driven by Yifei Ye came to a stop due to a technical fault and was unable to make the finish, giving the win to the sister car #31 who crossed the finish line just over 7 tenths in front of the chasing Oreca 07 from Tom Blomqvist.[7]
Adding to their Le Mans victory, Team WRT ended the 2021 season winning both the Drivers' and Teams' titles in the FIA WEC and ELMS. This means the team won all possible titles in their debut LMP2 season. Additionally WRT won five out of six possible titles in the GT World Challenge series with their GT operation, rounding off their most successful season to date. In 2022 WRT will expand to two full season entries in the FIA WEC. WRT also continues to run several Audi R8 LMS in the GT World Challenge Europe and will field a car for MotoGP legend Valentino Rossi in 2022. He will team up with Audi Sport factory drivers Frédéric Vervisch and Nico Müller. In January 2022 WRT won the Dubai 24 Hour for a second time. In the GT World Challenge Europe, the team won the Sprint Cup Teams' title for the ninth time in ten years while WRT drivers Dries Vanthoor and Charles Weerts won the Drivers' title for the third time in a row. This marked the end of an incredibly successful partnership with Audi Sport across SRO championships where the team earned several wins and won multiple titles.[8] From 2023 WRT will field several BMW M4 GT3s. In the FIA WEC, WRT was unable to retain its LMP2 titles despite winning four out of six races due to a bad result at the 24 Hours of Le Mans where points count double.
On 15 January 2023 WRT won the Dubai 24 Hour for the third time after having previously won the 2016 and 2022 editions. This marked WRT's first outing with BMW and immediately resulted in the BMW M4 GT3's first major 24 hour race victory. In February WRT also contested the first two rounds of the 2023 Intercontinental GT Challenge at Bathurst and Kyalami. WRT scored a 1-2 win at the Kyalami 9 Hours. In the FIA World Endurance Championship WRT once again entered two Oreca 07s in the LMP2 class. At the 2023 24 Hours of Le Mans WRT's #41 car finished second only 20s behind the winner, which was enough to give the #41 car driven by Robert Kubica, Louis Delétraz and Rui Andrade the lead in the championship. The trio went on to claim the 2023 FIA WEC LMP2 championship rounding of the season with 3 wins and 6 podiums in 7 races. WRT ended the LMP2 era in WEC with 10 race victories in 19 races and two championship wins in three seasons.
2024–present: Hypercar with BMW
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While never officially announced WRT had been chosen by Audi to run their LMDh program in the 2023 FIA WEC Hypercar class. However, days before the first rollout of the car Audi decided to stop the program, officially stating it was putting it on hold.[9] As a result WRT started looking to other options to enter the class in the WEC series. On 2 August 2022 WRT announced it would terminate their 13 years long partnership in GT racing with Audi Sport. Hours later BMW Motorsport announced that Team WRT would run their factory LMDh program in the FIA WEC. WRT will start extensive testing of the BMW M Hybrid V8 in 2023 before entering the 2024 FIA World Endurance Championship.[10] In addition to the Hypercar program WRT will also switch to BMW machinery for their GT3 efforts. The team confirmed that they would enter several BMW M4 GT3's starting from 2023. On November 27 2023 the 2024 FIA WEC entry list was revealed confirming that WRT would enter a total of four cars. Two BMW M Hybrid V8's in the Hypercar class that will compete for the overall wins as well as two BMW M4 GT3's competing in the newly formed LMGT3 class.[11] For their first season in Hypercar the #15 BMW will be driven by long time WRT driver Dries Vanthoor, two times DTM champion Marco Wittmann and Raffaele Marciello coming over from Mercedes. The #20 car will be shared by Sheldon van der Linde, Robin Frijns and René Rast. In the LMGT3 the #31 will be driven by Indonesian driver Sean Gelael swithcing from LMP2, Augusto Farfus and Darren Leung. On the #46 car Valentino Rossi will be lining up with his regular teammate Maxime Martin and Omani driver Ahmad Al Harthy.
After a difficult start in Hypercar the team started to show improvements from the 24 Hours of Le Mans on, where Dries Vanthoor put the BMW M Hybrid V8 first during the qualifying session. However, both cars suffered crashes during the race early on preventing any good result. At the 6 Hours of Fuji the #15 car achieved it’s best overall qualifying result in 3rd and improved to 2nd in the race. This was BMW’s first overall podium in the World Endurance Championship. WRT eventually secured 5th place in the manufacturers standings for BMW in their maiden season in Hypercar. In the LMGT3 WRT enjoyed much more success. After a strong debut in Qatar, WRT scored a 1-2 win at Imola thanks to a very good strategic decision to leave both cars on slick tires during the rain. This marked BMW’s first win in any class in the WEC. At the 24 Hours of Lemans both cars looked in the hunt for the win. However, the #46 car driven by Ahmad Al Harthy crashed out in the early night in tricky conditions. The #31 BMW M4 GT3 eventually ended up 2nd, only a handful seconds behind the winning Porsche from Manthey Racing. Both cars ended the season in 4th and 6th position in the standings.
Results & Achievements
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Notable Victories
edit- Overall Winner - 2011 24 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps
- Overall Winner - 2011 24 Hours of Zolder
- Overall Winner - 2012 24 Hours of Zolder
- Overall Winner - 2013 Baku World Challenge
- Overall Winner - 2014 24 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps
- Overall Winner - 2014 Baku World Challenge
- Overall Winner - 2015 24 Hours of Nürburgring
- Overall Winner - 2015 12 Hours of Sepang
- Overall Winner - 2016 24 Hours of Dubai
- Overall Winner - 2016 FIA GT World Cup
- Overall Winner - 2018 12 Hours of Bathurst
- Overall Winner - 2019 10 Hours of Suzuka
- LMP2 Winner - 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans
- Overall Winner - 2022 24 Hours of Dubai
- Overall Winner - 2023 24 Hours of Dubai
- Overall Winner - 2023 9 Hours of Kyalami
- Overall Winner - 2023 8 Hours of Indianapolis
- Overall Winner - 2024 8 Hours of Indianapolis
Main Championship titles
edit- GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup
- GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup
- GT World Challenge Europe
- Andros Trophy
- European Le Mans Series
- FIA World Endurance Championship
24 Hours of Le Mans
edit| Year | Entrant | No. | Car | Drivers | Class | Laps | Pos. | Class Pos. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 |  Team WRT
|
31 | Oreca 07-Gibson |  Robin Frijns Ferdinand Habsburg Charles Milesi
|
LMP2 | 363 | 6th | 1st |
| 41 |  Louis Delétraz Robert Kubica Yifei Ye
|
362 | NC | NC | ||||
| 2022 | Team WRT
|
31 | Oreca 07-Gibson | Robin Frijns Sean Gelael Rene Rast
|
LMP2 | 285 | DNF | DNF |
| 32 |  Mirko Bortolotti Rolf Ineichen Dries Vanthoor
|
366 | 15th | 11th | ||||
| RealTeam by WRT
|
41 |  Rui Andrade Ferdinand Habsburg Norman Nato
|
362 | 21st | 17th | |||
| 2023 | Team WRT
|
31 | Oreca 07-Gibson | Robin Frijns Sean Gelael Ferdinand Habsburg
|
LMP2 | 327 | 13th | 5th |
| 41 |  Rui Andrade Louis Delétraz Robert Kubica
|
328 | 10th | 2nd | ||||
| 2024 | BMW M Team WRT
|
15 | BMW M Hybrid V8 | Raffaele Marciello Dries Vanthoor Marco Wittmann
|
Hypercar | 102 | DNF | DNF |
| 20 | Robin Frijns René Rast Sheldon van der Linde
|
96 | NC | NC | ||||
| Team WRT
|
31 | BMW M4 GT3 |  Augusto Farfus Sean Gelael Darren Leung
|
LMGT3 | 280 | 28th | 2nd | |
| 46 |  Ahmad Al Harthy Maxime Martin Valentino Rossi
|
109 | DNF | DNF |
FIA World Endurance Championship
edit* Season still in progress
European Le Mans Series
edit| Year | Entrant | Class | No | Chassis | Engine | Drivers | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | Pos. | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | Team WRT
|
LMP2 | 47 | Ligier JS P2 | Judd HK 3.6 L V8 | Will Stevens Dries Vanthoor Laurens Vanthoor
|
SIL |
IMO |
RBR |
LEC |
SPA 2 |
EST |
11th | 18 |
| 2021 | Team WRT
|
LMP2 | 41 | Oreca 07 | Gibson GK428 4.2L V8 | Louis Delétraz Robert Kubica Yifei Ye
|
CAT 1 |
RBR 1 |
LEC 5 |
MNZ 4 |
SPA 1 |
ALG 2 |
1st | 118 |
Bathurst 12 Hours results
edit| Year | Team | Drivers | Car | Car# | Class | Laps | Pos. | Class Pos. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Audi Sport Team WRT
|
Robin Frijns Stuart Leonard Dries Vanthoor
|
Audi R8 LMS GT3 | 37 | GT3 - APP | 271 | 1st | 1st |
Pedro Lamy Mathias Lauda Paul Dalla Lana Will Davison
|
39 | GT3 - APA | 267 | 14th | 8th | |||
| 2023 | Team WRT
|
Sheldon van der Linde Charles Weerts Dries Vanthoor
|
BMW M4 GT3 | 32 | Pro | 323 | 4th | 4th |
| Maxime Martin Valentino Rossi Augusto Farfus
|
46 | Pro | 322 | 6th | 6th | |||
| 2024 | Team WRT
|
Sheldon van der Linde Charles Weerts Dries Vanthoor
|
BMW M4 GT3 | 32 | Pro | 120 | DNF | DNF |
| Maxime Martin Valentino Rossi Raffaele Marciello
|
46 | Pro | 275 | 5th | 5th |
Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters
editReferences
edit- ^ a b "Dominant First Win For Audi at Spa". Blancpain Endurance Series. SRO Group. 2011-07-31. Archived from the original on 2012-03-13. Retrieved 2011-08-03.
- ^ "17/03/2011 WRT Step Up to FIA GT3 European Championship in 2011". FIA GT3 European Championship. SRO Group. 2011-03-17. Retrieved 2011-08-03.
- ^ "Revamped 2012 season plans take shape". FIA GT1 World Championship. SRO Group. 2011-07-30. Archived from the original on 2011-10-07. Retrieved 2011-08-03.
- ^ "WRT becomes Audi customer team in the DTM". DTM.com. 12 October 2018. Retrieved 12 October 2018.
- ^ "A NEW EXCITING CHALLENGE FOR TEAM WRT, AS IT ENTERS THE FIA WEC AND THE LE MANS 24H IN LMP2". w-racingteam.com. 21 January 2021. Retrieved 1 March 2021.
- ^ "ROBERT KUBICA TO JOIN TEAM WRT IN ELMS PROGRAMME". w-racingteam.com. 12 February 2021. Retrieved 1 March 2021.
- ^ "Broken Throttle Sensor Denies No. 41 WRT Oreca LMP2 Victory". FIA WEC. 2021-08-23. Retrieved 2021-09-09.
- ^ "TEAM WRT TAKES ONE MORE TITLE AND RACE WIN (IN THE SILVER CUP) IN FINAL RACE WITH AUDI". w-racingteam.com. 2 October 2022. Retrieved 12 November 2022.
- ^ "Audi LMDh Program Paused Amid Uncertain Future". sportscar365.com. 9 March 2022. Retrieved 3 August 2022.
- ^ "Top-quality reinforcements for BMW M Motorsport: Team WRT competing with the BMW M Hybrid V8 in the WEC from 2024". bmw-motorsport.com. 2 August 2022. Retrieved 3 August 2022.
- ^ "TEAM WRT SET FOR 2024 FIA WORLD ENDURANCE CHAMPIONSHIP WITH BMW M QUARTET". w-racingteam.com. 27 November 2023. Retrieved 28 November 2023.