Team Audi Sport received a warm welcome in its home country after winning the Dakar Rally. At the Ingolstadt and Neckarsulm sites, the winners Carlos Sainz/Lucas Cruz and their teammates Emil Bergkvist and Stéphane Peterhansel/Edouard Boulanger appeared before the workforce. The Board of Management of AUDI AG also welcomed the successful motorsport drivers, who drove their electrically powered off-road prototypes around the two factory sites and signed numerous autographs.
“Victories such as the success at the Dakar Rally are among the greatest milestones in Audi’s motorsport history,” says Gernot Döllner, Chairman of the Board of Management of AUDI AG. “With the electrified drive, Audi has proven its “Vorsprung durch Technik” in one of the toughest competitions in the world. For the enthusiastic Audi employees, it was a great experience to see their successful motorsport drivers here in Germany.” On Wednesday, the three drivers and their co-drivers visited the plant in Ingolstadt. In addition to a tour of the site, the professional drivers also signed numerous autographs and attended the works meeting. There, Audi CEO Gernot Döllner introduced the successful rally drivers to the workforce and congratulated them on their success. A kind of bivouac around an original service truck exuded real rally flair on the Audi Piazza.
In the evening, CEO Gernot Döllner and the other board members welcomed the rally drivers and the team of Audi Head of Motorsport Rolf Michl in Neuburg an der Donau. A victory celebration on the Audi Sport premises marked the festive highlight of the day. The striking Dakar Rally trophy completes an impressive collection of the most important trophies from four and a half decades of motorsport at Audi. “My thanks go to a tireless and talented team and all three driver pairings. They made this success possible in such an unpredictable discipline,” said Rolf Michl. “We are happy to now hold the coveted trophy in our hands. This is the reward for a technically, sporting and organizationally intensive chapter.”
On Thursday, the employees at the site in Baden-Württemberg also got to see the rally drivers. The day began at the Audi Böllinger Höfe before the workforce celebrated their drivers at an autograph session followed by a tour of the plant and a visit to the works meeting in Neckarsulm. This double appearance at both German sites is a great tradition at Audi: in the past, the best racing drivers from the Le Mans program, the DTM and customer racing regularly visited the enthusiastic employees in both cities after major successes.