Christian Abt

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Abt driving for Audi (Team Phoenix) in the 2006 DTM season.

Christian Abt (born May 8, 1967) is a successful race car driver born in Kempten, Germany, into a family of amateur race drivers and car dealers.

His elder brother Hans-Jürgen Abt runs the Abt Sportsline Audi racing teams as well as their tuning company for Audi and Volkswagen.

Christian Abt started his career in motocross before moving on to German Formula BMW, becoming the 1991 champion.

In 1992 he won the German Formula Three championship.

Driving a privately entered Audi A4 with the quattro 4-Wheel-Drive as this was banned for factory entrants, he won the German Supertouring Championship STW in 1999, the last season of this series. This happened under controversial circumstances; during the last lap of the race at Nurburgring, Uwe Alzen, Abt's main rival for the championship was leading, with Abt 2nd. As they reached the chicane Alzen was coming up to lap Abt's teammate Kris Nissen and they both crashed. Abt was now in the lead but at the last corner, Alzen's teammate Roland Asch, who was right behind the trio, crashed into Abt, taking him out. Alzen limped to the checkered flag in 2nd place and handing him the championship. But not for long as several weeks later, an amateur video proved that Asch crashed into Abt deliberately, and as a result, the DMSB, the German governing body sanctioning the STW annulled the last lap of the race, handing the championship back to Abt.

Still considered as privateers, Abt entered the new Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters with hastily built cars similar to Audi TT. When driving an Audi R8 for Joest Racing at the 24 Hours of Le Mans that year, Abt called no other than Roland Asch to step in.