Seikel Motorsport was a German auto racing team founded by Peter Seikel in 1968. After running national series, the team moved on to touring car racing before finally grand tourer racing. Peter Seikel officially retired in 2007 at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, officially ending the team as well.
Following a move to international motorsports in 1978, Seikel was part of Audi's presence in the European Touring Car Championship. They aided Audi in winning the 1980 constructors championship, while Peter Seikel himself had taken the Group N drivers championship in 1979. The team would later move to running BMWs, Fords, and Toyotas in the championship until it was dissolved in 1988.
Seikel would then be hired by Honda to develop the Civic for touring car racing, then running an NSX in the German national GT series. However, in 1994 Seikel would move to Porsche, and concentrate on the new BPR Global GT Series, as well as running the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The team ran BPR, as well as its later incarnation the FIA GT Championship until 1998 before concentrating solely on endurances races. The team would earn class wins at the 6 Hours of Vallelunga and 1000km Monza. However the team's best achievement would be a class win at the 2001 24 Hours of Le Mans.
With the creation of the new Le Mans Endurance Series in 2004, the team would concentrate on the series will also running Le Mans. However, Peter Seikel decided to retire from motorsports at the end of 2006. In 2007, Seikel contested their final race, having earned an automatic invitation from the 24 Hours of Le Mans organisers for their result the previous year. Seikel would reach an agreement with Team Felbermayr-Proton to use their drivers while Seikel's men prepared the car. The car would be unable to finish the race, marking the end of Seikel's racing career.
Peter Seikel also runs an off-road 4x4 company and rally team under the name Auto Seikel.
Sports car racing is a form of motorsport road racing which utilises sports cars that have two seats and enclosed wheels. They may be purpose-built prototypes or grand tourers based on road-going models. Sports car racing is one of the main types of circuit auto racing, alongside open-wheel racing, touring car racing and stock car racing. Sports car races are often, though not always, endurance races that are run over particularly long distances or large amounts of time, resulting in a larger emphasis on the reliability and efficiency of the car and its drivers as opposed to outright car performance or driver skills. The FIA World Endurance Championship is an example of one of the best known sports car racing series.
The FIA GT Championship was a sports car racing series organized by the Stéphane Ratel Organisation (SRO) at the behest of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The championship was mostly concentrated in Europe, but throughout the years has visited other continents including Asia and South America. At the end of 2009, the championship was replaced by the FIA GT1 World Championship, which morphed into the FIA GT Series for 2013.
Oliver Richard Benjamin Jarvis is a British professional racing driver currently racing in the FIA World Endurance Championship, European Le Mans Series and Asian Le Mans Series with United Autosports.
The BPR Global GT Series was a grand tourer-based sports car racing series which ran from 1994 to 1996 before becoming the FIA GT Championship in 1997. The series was founded by Jürgen Barth, Patrick Peter, and Stéphane Ratel as an international endurance racing series to replace the World Sportscar Championship which had ended in 1992.
Porsche has been successful in many branches of motorsport of which most have been in long-distance races.
The Dallara SP1, also known as the Chrysler LMP, was a Le Mans Prototype built by Italian firm Dallara. Initially used as part of Chrysler Corporation's attempt to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the cars were later sold to customers for use series such as the FIA Sportscar Championship and Le Mans Series.
The Panoz LMP-1 Roadster-S was a Le Mans Prototype built for Panoz in 1999. The car was a successor to the Esperante GTR-1 which had competed in the Grand Tourer categories internationally. Following competition in the American Le Mans Series and at the 24 Hours of Le Mans until 2001, the car was replaced by the Panoz LMP07.
AF Corse is an Italian auto racing team founded by former racing driver Amato Ferrari in 1995 in Piacenza. Strongly linked to the Maserati and Ferrari brands, AF Corse currently competes in the FIA World Endurance Championship, GT World Challenge Europe, European Le Mans Series, Asian Le Mans Series, and International GT Open, and are four-time champions of the GT2 class of the former FIA GT Championship. The team has also entered cars under Advanced Engineering, AT Racing, PeCom Racing, Spirit of Race, Formula Racing, 8Star Motorsports and MR Racing, and in association with Michael Waltrip Racing.
The 2009 American Le Mans Series season was the 39th season for the IMSA GT Championship, with it being the eleventh season with the American Le Mans Series moniker. It began on March 21, 2009, and ended on October 10, 2009 after ten events. The series was composed of Le Mans Prototypes (LMP) and Grand Tourer (GT) race cars divided into four classes: LMP1, LMP2, GT1, and GT2. A fifth category, known as the Challenge class, was also added for select races and featured Porsche 997 GT3 Cup cars from the IMSA GT3 Cup Challenge. 2009 was also the final year for GT1, with Corvette Racing abandoning the class after Long Beach and switching over to much more competitive GT2 class.
The Asian Le Mans Series (AsLMS) is an Asian sports car racing endurance series created by the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO) and based in Asia. It is the successor to the defunct Japan Le Mans Challenge which folded in 2007 after its second season. The ACO aims to attract teams and drivers from Asian countries.
Mike Newton is a British businessman and racing driver. He is the founder and CEO of the AD Group of companies, which includes its solution arm AD Network Video. He raced in the Le Mans Series and 24 Hours of Le Mans in cars prepared by the RML Group. Newton was named Britain's Top Entrepreneur by Management Today magazine in 2005.
Christopher Haase is a German professional racing driver. He currently competes in the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup with Audi customer team Tresor Attempto Racing. Among his most notable successes are winning the 2007 ADAC GT Masters title, triumphing alongside Christopher Mies in the 2009 FIA GT3 European Championship, and taking home the Nürburgring 24 Hours in 2012 and 2014. He also won the 24 Hours of Spa in 2017.
W Racing Team 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. 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.
Proton Competition is a German auto racing team is based in Ummendorf, Baden-Württemberg. It was founded by Gerold Ried, and is currently owned by his son Christian Ried. The team currently competes in the FIA World Endurance Championship with a customer Porsche 963 and a factory-supported Ford Mustang GT3. It also competes in the European Le Mans Series with the Oreca 07 and the Porsche 911. They also have a racing program in the IMSA SportsCar Championship, racing with a customer Porsche 963 and a factory-supported Ford Mustang GT3.
Marcel Fässler is a Swiss former racing driver. From 2010 to 2016 he competed in the FIA World Endurance Championship as part of Audi Sport Team Joest with co-drivers André Lotterer and Benoît Tréluyer, winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans three times and capturing the World Endurance Drivers' Championship in 2012.
Apex Motorsport, formerly known as Audi Sport UK, was a British auto racing team founded in 1996 by former racing driver Richard Lloyd in partnership with the Volkswagen Group. Formed to bring Audi into the British Touring Car Championship, the team won the teams and manufacturers titles in their debut season, as well as the drivers championship for German Frank Biela with eight victories over the course of the season. Biela and Audi Sport UK finished the 1997 season in second for all three championships before the series banned the four-wheel drive systems that Audi utilized, forcing the team to redevelop a new car for 1998. The 1998 BTCC campaign was winless, and Audi Sport UK left the series at the end of the season to concentrate on sports car racing.
Team Taisan is a Japanese auto racing team founded in 1983 by Yasutsune "Ricky" Chiba and owned by the Taisan Industrial Company. Most active in the Super GT Series, formerly known as the All Japan Grand Touring Car Championship (JGTC), Taisan has been involved in all but one season from 1994 to 2018, taking a sabbatical in 2015. During that time they have won eight team championships and four drivers championships, representing manufacturers Ferrari, Porsche, Dodge, Toyota, Nissan, and Audi. Team Taisan has also participated in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, winning their class on their debut in 2000. For nearly their entire career, Taisan has been sponsored by tire manufacturer Yokohama Rubber Company, often carrying the name of Yokohama's Advan brand.
Group GT1, also known simply as GT1, was a set of regulations maintained formerly by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), for Grand Tourer racing. The category was first created in 1993, as the top class of the BPR Global GT Series, and was included in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. It fell under FIA regulation from 1997, after the BPR series came under the control of the FIA, becoming known as the FIA GT Championship. The category was dissolved at the end of 2011. The category may be split into four distinctive eras, from its debut in 1993–1996, 1997–1998, 2000–2009, 2010–2011.
Obermaier-Racing GmbH was a German auto racing team and tuning garage founded by Hans Obermaier and Jürgen Lässig. Specializing in Porsches for much of their history, the team competed at the top level of the World Sportscar Championship from 1983 until 1990 before finding success in the various incarnations of the Porsche Carrera Cup. The team was later known as Oberbayern Motorsport before their auto racing activities ceased in 2000.
Mattia Drudi is an Italian racing driver who currently competes in the GT World Challenge Europe for Attempto Racing.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
