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| Founded | 1978 |
|---|---|
| Base | Wald-Michelbach,Germany |
| Teamprincipal(s) | Reinhold Joest |
| Former series | WeatherTech SportsCar Championship FIA World Endurance Championship World Sportscar Championship Deutsche Rennsport Meisterschaft IMSA GT Championship Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft American Le Mans Series Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters Le Mans Series Intercontinental Le Mans Cup |
| Noted drivers |  Frank Biela Rinaldo Capello Marcel FässlerReinhold Joest Tom KristensenAndré LottererKlaus Ludwig Allan McNishManuel ReuterEmanuele PirroMike Rockenfeller Benoît TréluyerMarco Werner"John Winter" |
| Teams' Championships | 6 ('12 WEC,'13 WEC, '00, '01, '02, '03ALMS) |
| Drivers' Championships | 6 ('12 WEC,'13 WEC, '00, '01, '02, '03ALMS) |
Joest Racing is a Germansports car racing team that was established in 1978 by formerPorsche works racerReinhold Joest. Their headquarters are inWald-Michelbach,Germany.
Between 1998 and 2016, Joest Racing were strongly linked withAudi Sport GmbH and were responsible for assisting with development of theirsports prototypes for participation at the24 Hours of Le Mans, most notably theAudi R8, which scored a hat trick between 2000 and 2002.[1] Along with the Le Mans ventures, Audi and Joest Racing also won several teams' championships together in both theAmerican Le Mans Series and theFIA World Endurance Championship. Prior to their partnership with Audi, Joest Racing was primarily aPorsche team, winning four Le Mans races with them between 1984 and 1997.[2] Joest Racing have also assistedMazda andScuderia Cameron Glickenhaus with theirDPi andLe Mans Hypercar efforts respectively.[3][4]
As a combined driver/team owner, Reinhold Joest first began to race aPorsche 908/3 in theEuropean Sportscar Championship, winning the driver's title. He then switched toPorsche 935s, winning the24 Hours of Daytona in 1980. The team won theDRM back to back with driverBob Wollek, in 1982 and 1983. During the 1982 season, whilst thePorsche 956 was only available to the works team, Joest adapted a roof onto aPorsche 936 to enter theGroup CWorld Endurance Championship. They would race the car into the 1983 season until they took delivery of their 956 prior to Le Mans.
In1984, in absence of the works team, Joest Racing would score the first of their fifteen wins at the24 Hours of Le Mans, withKlaus Ludwig andHenri Pescarolo driving their "lucky #7" car a Porsche 956, chassis number 117. In1985, the works team returned, and despite having little factory support, they defended their title with Ludwig,Paolo Barilla and incognito German businessman "John Winter" driving the #7 chassis number 117 again. This would make them the second team to score back to back wins with the same car, the other beingJW Automotive whoseFord GT40 Mk.I won in1968 and1969. In1986,1988, and1989 Joest won theADAC Supercup title for teams and Wollek winning the drivers cup in 1989. They also took theInterserie title for drivers with Winter in 1985 andBernd Schneider in 1991, and the teams title in 1991.
In 1989,FIA introduced the new 3.5 litreFormula One engine rule to Group C, which not many teams were happy about, because few, if any, such engines were available to privateer teams like Joest. The previous fuel economy based rules were gradually phased out in favour of short races with cars that were virtually two-seater Formula 1 cars; existing Group C cars such as Joest's Porsche 962s were given higher weights and lower fuel allocation to make them less competitive. The team would instead compete in theIMSAGTP category beginning in 1990, winning the24 Hours of Daytona in 1991 with Wollek, Pescarolo,Frank Jelinski, "Winter" andHurley Haywood. With theirPorsche 962 now being outmoded by theNissans,Jaguars andToyotas, the team would not score any more victories. In 1993, the Nissan andTWRJaguar team had withdrawn, and theAAR EagleToyota would continue to dominate the series final year. Joest managed to score the car's last IMSA victory at theRoad America 500, due to Toyota's absence.
In the 1990s, the team also had a successful career developing and racing anOpel Calibra in theDeutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft (DTM). They first won the ITR Gold Cup at theDonington Park round in 1994 withManuel Reuter driving, when the leadingAlfa Romeo ofAlessandro Nannini was disqualified for running out of fuel. They would continue to have a successful career there by the time the series became a full-fledged international championship (ITC), winning the title for the final year in 1996 forOpel.
In late 1995,Tom Walkinshaw Racing were commissioned by Porsche to produce aWSC car to compete in the 1996 Daytona 24-hour race. The resultingPorsche WSC-95 was based on the TWR's 1991Jaguar XJR-14 chassis, with the roof removed and a flat-six Porsche engine fitted. The car was withdrawn because of a sudden rule change. For 1996, the concept was revived and Joest were chosen to run the WSC-95s atLe Mans as backup for Porsche's own team of works911 GT1s. Joest won the race withDavy Jones,Manuel Reuter, andAlexander Wurz. They returned in1997, this time without works support, but again with the same car wearing #7. The winning pilots were byMichele Alboreto,Stefan Johansson andTom Kristensen, the latter scoring the first of his nine wins. As with the #7 956 of the 1980s, Joest attempted for a third straight win, although without success, as neither car finished, while Porsche itself prevailed in the1998 race.
In 1998, after being associated with Porsche for many years, the team signed a works contract withAudi (its CEO beingFerdinand Piëch, a grandson of Porsche) to support them for the1999 24 Hours of Le Mans. Joest helped them build and develop theAudi R8R. Audi, not being sure which concept was the better one, also supported an LM-GTP entry, theR8C, developed by Racing Technology Norfolk. While the British R8Cs never worked properly, the two Joest R8R were reliable, yet too slow to finish better than 3rd and 4th against one of the worksBMW V12 LMR and aToyota GT-One.
Audi and Joest went back to develop the highly successful R8, winning its maiden race at the2000 12 Hours of Sebring, and going on to win atLe Mans. Between 2000 and 2002, the R8 cars took a hat-trick of wins at Le Mans, Sebring, andPetit Le Mans, as well asAmerican Le Mans Series titles in each year.
Audi scaled their sports car racing operation down at the end of 2002,[5] preferring to focus their attention on theBentley Speed 8 for a year, allowing it to win in 2003 (with support by Joest mechanics). In 2004, Audi returned toDTMtouring car racing, now officially backing up theAbt Sportsline effort which had been called "private" since 2000. Joest and Abt fieldedAudi A4s in the series.
In 2006, Joest began racing the newdiesel-poweredAudi R10 sports car. They began the 2006 season with a win at the12 Hours of Sebring, and took also the2006 24 Hours of Le Mans, replicating that performancea year later and again in 2008, both times against Peugeot's diesel908 HDi FAP coupe.
In 2009, Joest and Audi introduced theAudi R15 sports car, the replacement for the R10. However, reliability issues allowed Peugeot to finish first and second at the2009 24 Hours of Le Mans, with their 908 HDi FAP which had been perfected over its three-year history. In an answer to the 2009 issues, Audi reworked the R15 for 2010 (under theR15 TDI plus designation) with a higher reliability factor; unexpected Peugeot reliability issues of the 908 HDi FAP forced all four cars (including one byOreca) to retire before the end of the race and resulted in a clean sweep of the podium in the2010 24 Hours of Le Mans, with all three cars running farther than the former1971 race record, despite that the R15s were not using the V10TDI engines at full and were not running faster than the four 908s.[6]
In 2011, theAudi R18 TDI won the24 Hours of Le Mans despite the loss of 2 cars (both via crashes with slower GT Ferraris claiming Allan McNish in car 3 and then Mike Rockenfeller in car 1; the sole survivor, car 2, was the winner) and a ferocious pace from the opposing Peugeots. The R18s failed to win any of the other races in theIntercontinental Le Mans Cup that year, however, handing the team and drive titles to Peugeot.
Audi Sport Team Joest entered a pair ofAudi R8 LMS GT3's in the2011 Bathurst 12 Hour held at theMount Panorama Circuit,Bathurst,Australia on 6 February. Both cars qualified on the front row with the team of Marc Basseng, Christopher Mies andDarryl O'Young leading home Australian team mates Mark Eddy,Craig Lowndes andWarren Luff in a 1-2 finish. With both cars on the same lap racing for the win, the margin was only 0.7141 between the two at the end of 12 hours of racing. The Joest Racing R8's finished one lap in front of the VIP Pet Foods RacingPorsche 997 GT3 Cup R ofCraig Baird and father and son pairing Tony and Klark Quinn. It was Joest's 2nd win in Australia in two starts having previously won the ALMSRace of a Thousand Years on 31 December 2000 withDindo Capello andAllan McNish winning in anAudi R8LMP on the oldGrand Prix circuit inAdelaide,South Australia. Capello put the R8 on pole position, while McNish was laid up with a bad back after he put it out when stepping out of hisKilt after a pre-event photo shoot. They also had to drive a repaired car after Capello put the crocodile liveried car into the tyre barriers in the race morning warm up session. Despite his troubles, McNish started the race and set the fastest lap. He also drove the 25 laps required and wrapped up the inaugural ALMS Drivers' title as a result.
For the first part of 2012, with the collapse of the Peugeot racing program, Audi ran near-unopposed in the first races of the 2012FIA World Endurance Championship. The R18 TDI won the2012 12 Hours of Sebring in its last race and its successor, the Audi R18 Ultra, won the2012 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps with the related R18 E-Tron Quattro finishing in 2nd place. In the 2012 24 Hours of Le Mans, Joest Racing Audis won the top 3 positions with two R18 E-Tron Quattros finishing 1st and 2nd and one Audi R18 Ultra taking 3rd. After Le Mans, Audi won 2 further rounds of theFIA World Endurance Championship, the2012 6 Hours of Silverstone and the2012 6 Hours of Bahrain. While handing the other three rounds to Toyota, Audi would win the LMP1 Manufacturer Championship 2012 and helped Andre Lotterer, Bernoit Treleuyer and Marcel Fässler to become Driver World Endurance Champions 2012.
In late 2016,Audi Sport announced that they would leave the FIA World Endurance Championship.[7]
On 18 July 2017 it was announced that Joest Racing would take over the operation of theMazda RT24-PDaytona Prototype International (DPi) entry in theIMSA Weathertech SportsCar Championship for the2018 season.[8] Mazda withdrew from the remainder of the 2017 season in order for Joest to spearhead testing and development of the then uncompetitive DPi. The partnership was terminated at the end of March 2020 with Mazda moving toMultimatic Motorsports.[9] During their partnership, Joest Racing was able to help Mazda score five victories in the series, winning atWatkins Glen,Canadian Tire Motorsport Park,Road America,Sebring, and atDaytona for theWeatherTech 240. In 2020, they also took home a podium finish at the2020 24 Hours of Daytona, finishing in 2nd.
In 2021 it was announced that Joest Racing would work with Podium Advanced Technologies to assist in the running ofScuderia Cameron Glickenhaus' newHypercar programme, entering twoSCG 007 LMH hypercars in the2021 FIA World Endurance Championship.[10] Glickenhaus scored podiums at the2022 1000 Miles of Sebring,2022 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps, and2022 24 Hours of Le Mans races, as well as two pole positions at Spa and Monza during their tenure together.[11]
| Year | Entrant | No. | Car | Drivers | Class | Laps | Pos. | Class Pos. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Mazda Team Joest | 55 | Mazda RT24-P |  Jonathan BomaritoSpencer PigotHarry Tincknell | P | 541 | Ret | Ret |
| Mazda Team Joest | 77 | Mazda RT24-P | Oliver JarvisTristan NunezRené Rast | P | 530 | Ret | Ret | |
| 2019 | Mazda Team Joest | 55 | Mazda RT24-P | Jonathan BomaritoOlivier PlaHarry Tincknell | DPi | 440 | Ret | Ret |
| Mazda Team Joest | 77 | Mazda RT24-P | Timo BernhardOliver JarvisTristan NunezRené Rast | DPi | 220 | Ret | Ret | |
| 2020 | Mazda Team Joest | 55 | Mazda RT24-P | Jonathan BomaritoRyan Hunter-ReayHarry Tincknell | DPi | 823 | 6th | 6th |
| Mazda Team Joest | 77 | Mazda RT24-P | Oliver JarvisTristan NunezOlivier Pla | DPi | 833 | 2nd | 2nd |
| # | Season | Date | Classes | Track / Race | No. | Winning drivers | Chassis | Engine |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2019 | June 30 | (DPi) | Watkins Glen | 55 | Jonathan Bomarito /Olivier Pla /Harry Tincknell | Mazda RT24-P | Mazda MZ-2.0T 2.0 LTurboI4 |
| 2 | July 7 | (DPi) | Mosport | 77 | Oliver Jarvis /Tristan Nunez | Mazda RT24-P | Mazda MZ-2.0T 2.0 LTurboI4 | |
| 3 | August 4 | (DPi) | Road America | 55 | Jonathan Bomarito /Harry Tincknell | Mazda RT24-P | Mazda MZ-2.0T 2.0 LTurboI4 |
