Joest
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Joest Racing (currently Audi Sport Team Joest) is a racing team that was established in 1978 by former Porsche works racer Reinhold Joest. The head quarters in Michelbach, Germany are not too far away from Heidelberg or the Hockenheimring.
During the last 20 years, Joest Racing won the 24 Hours of Le Mans seven times with various brands, making it the most successful team in sports car racing of that era. Joest Racing is known for the excellent preparation of their cars as well as the quick work in the pits, which gives them an edge even when running against other teams with identical cars.
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[edit] Joest, the driver
The career of racer Reinhold Joest began in 1962 in a local hillclimb race in the Odenwald mountains. He won two German championships in that category by 1967. Since 1966, he raced successfully on the Nürburgring, scoring a class win at the 1000km. He won the overall title for this endurance sports cars race twice, in 1970 and 1980, with five class wins.
In the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Reinhold Joest's first entry was in 1968, with a Ford GT40 co-driven by Helmut Kelleners and sponsored by a German car magazine. His first remarkable result came in 1972, after the dominating Porsche 917 and similar cars were not allowed anymore. Without any modern cars available, Reinhold Joest borrowed an outdated 3000cc Porsche 908/02 Langheck Coupé from the Jo Siffert Museum. He and his two co-drivers finished 3rd with the 1969 model that was carefully prepared. Despite being part of factory Porsche teams on several occasions, he never managed to be on their winning car. He came close in 1980, finishing second together with Jacky Ickx in his private Porsche 936 that was called Porsche 908/80 as Porsche did not officially sell the 936.
Despite never winning as a driver in Le Mans, Reinhold Joest ended his driving career in style. After winning the Daytona 24 Hours in a Porsche 935 and on the Nürburgring with his Porsche 908/3 Turbo in 1980, both with Rolf Stommelen, he went on to win several German drm races in 1981 with a mighty Porsche 935 Moby Dick, to retire after winning the Kyalami 9 hours with Jochen Mass at the end of the year.
[edit] Joest, the team owner
As a combined driver/team owner, Reinhold Joest first began to race a Porsche 908/3 in the European Sports Car Championship, winning the driver's title. He then switched to 935s, helping the car to win the Daytona 24 Hours in 1980. Retiring as a driver after 1981, his team won the DRM back to back for one of Joest's favourite driver, Bob Wollek, in 1982 and 1983. During the 1982 season, whilst the Porsche 956 was only available to the works team, Joest adapted a roof onto a Porsche 936 to enter the Group C WEC. They would race the car into the 1983 season until they took delivery of their 956 prior to Le Mans.
[edit] Joest's "lucky #7" wins twice at LM
In 1984, in absence of the works team, Joest Racing would score their first of their seven wins at the 24 Hours of Le Mans with Klaus Ludwig and Henri Pescarolo driving their "lucky #7" car. Excellent preparation, very good work in the pits and the skill of the drivers, including three-time winner Ludwig, gave them an advantage over other teams running identical cars. In 1985, with the works team returning, despite having little factory support, they defended their title with Ludwig, Paolo Barilla and incognito German businessman "John Winter" driving the #7 again, despite having won in the previous year. This would make them the second team to score back to back wins with the same car, the other being JW Automotive in 1968 and 1969.
Between 1986 to 1989, with the exception of 1987, Joest won the Supercup title for teams and Wollek winning the drivers cup in 1989. They also took the Interserie title for drivers with Winter in 1985 and Bernd Schneider in 1991 with a teams title in 1991.
With the works team 1987 withdrawal mid-season, Joest Racing took over the responsibilities of partial factory support, representing them until the end of the IMSA GTP era in 1993.
In a bid to reduce top speed at Le Mans' long Mulsanne straight (French: ligne droite des Hunaudières), in which cars were capable of reaching 240mph, FIA introduced the new 3.5 liter Formula One engine rule in 1989, which not many teams were happy about, as few if any such engines were available to privateer teams like Joest. So, they would also compete in the IMSA GTP category in 1990, debuting at Daytona 24 Hours, defecting stateside full time in 1991, winning the Daytona 24 Hours that year with Wollek, Pescarolo, Frank Jelinski, "John Winter" and Hurley Haywood. With the car now being outmoded by the Nissans, Jaguars and Toyotas, the team would not score any more victories. In 1993, the Nissan and TWR Jaguar team had withdrawn and the AAR Eagle Toyota would continue to dominate the series final year, Joest managed to score the car's last IMSA victory at the Road America 500km in 1993, due to Toyota's absence.
[edit] Joest & Opel
In the 1990s, the team also had a successful career developing and racing an Opel Calibra in the DTM between 1993 to 1995, first winning the ITR Gold Cup at the Donington Park round in 1994 with Manuel Reuter driving, when the leading Alfa Romeo of Alessandro 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 for Opel.
[edit] Joest #7 wins again twice
In late 1995, with Porsche providing the engine, Joest took a former TWR Jaguar XJ-14 chassis, removed the roof and turned it into a WSC car to compete in the 1996 Daytona 24 hour race only to withdraw because of a sudden rule change. They would take the car also to Le Mans, of course. Numbered again #7, Joest won with Davy Jones, Reuter and a young soon to be F1 driver called Alexander Wurz. They returned in 1997, this time without works support, but again with the same car wearing #7 despite having won the year before. The winning pilots were by Michele Alboreto, Stefan Johansson and Tom Kristensen, the latter scoring the first of his seven wins. Like with the #7 956 of the 1980's, Joest would attempt for a third straight win, without success though, as both cars did not finish, while the factory itself prevailed in the 1998 24 Hours of Le Mans. By then, Joest had gained the reputation of winning back to back races by using the same car on two occasions.
[edit] Audi Sport Team Joest
In 1998, after being associated with Porsche for many years, they got a works contract with Audi (its CEO being Ferdinand Piech, a grandson of Porsche) to support them for the 1999 24 Hours of Le Mans. Joest helped them build and develop a predecessor of the Audi R8, the 1999 open top LMP R8R. Audi, not being sure which concept was the better one, also supported a LM-GT1 entry with gullwing doors, the R8C developed in Norfolk by rtn. All four cars were painted silver, reminding of the 1930s Auto Unions that competed against the other Silver Arrows of Mercedes-Benz. But in 1999, the Mercedes-Benz CLR were a failure. While the British R8Cs never worked properly, the two Joest R8R were reliable, yet a little too slow to finish better than 3rd and 4th.
Audi and Joest went back to develop the highly successful R8, winning her maiden win at the Sebring 12 Hours in 2000. At Le Mans, it was not the #7 car again, but the #8 car that won. Between 2000 to 2002, the R8 cars took a hat-trick of wins at Le Mans (as #1 now), at Sebring, at the Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta, and by taking the American Le Mans Series titles.
Audi scaled their sports car racing operation down at the end of 2002, preferring to focus their attention on the Bentley Speed 8 for a year, allowing it to win in 2003 (with some support by Joest mechanics).
In 2004, Audi returned to DTM touring car racing, now officially backing up the Abt-Sportsline effort which had been called "private" since 2000. Joest and Abt raced Audi A4s in Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters.
For 2006, Joest is racing the new Diesel-powered Audi R10 sports car. They began the 2006 season with a win at the 12 Hours of Sebring, and took also the 2006 24 Hours of Le Mans.
