Audi drops out of W2RC, ending rally raid programme early

The swan song season for Team Audi Sport‘s rally raid programme has come to a sooner end than planned. Despite winning the Dakar Rally in January, a lack of suitable parts for the Audi RS Q e-tron E2 have forced them to shut down after just one round of the 2024 World Rally-Raid Championship.

The RS Q e-tron, the only electric vehicle in the W2RC’s premier Ultimate category, relies on intricate components that are sourced from a very limited pool of vendors, some of which take as long as two years to produce. Much of the parts were used up during a disastrous 2023 Dakar Rally in which all three Audi drivers crashed out or suffered severe mechanical failures, followed by an intensive testing regimen to diagnose what went wrong. Although Audi finally broke through to win the 2024 Dakar with Carlos Sainz, attrition took its toll on his team-mates Mattias Ekström and Stéphane Peterhansel and further depleted their resources.

Audi was already set to close the team after 2024 to focus on Formula One, where they are set to supply engines for Sauber in 2026, but hoped to go out by winning the W2RC as well. Sainz’s Dakar win, the fourth of his career, gave Audi a thirteen-point edge in the manufacturer’s standings over twice reigning champion Toyota.

Q Motorsport, who provides technical support, has expressed interest in racing the RS Q e-trons following Audi’s exit.

“We have made history with this success and attracted a lot of attention worldwide,” Audi racing boss Rolf Michl stated. “It was a hard-earned and extremely emotional victory for a highly motivated team. Team Audi Sport and Q Motorsport showed exemplary team spirit in a particularly tough edition of this challenging motorsport event. After setbacks last season, we managed to turn the tide and prevailed this time around against a number of strong teams and very good drivers. My thanks go to everyone involved, whose hard work made this successful conclusion to the programme possible.”

With their exit, Audi departs the rally raid world after three years with two overall victories. They became the first electric car to win an international rally when Peterhansel won the 2022 Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge. Later that year, Sainz set the fastest time outright among all cars at the Rallye du Maroc, though the RS Q e-tron E2—a slimmer and upgraded model that made its début there—was not classified in the T1 (Ultimate) results.

Sainz, Ekström, and Peterhansel have not revealed their plans for the rest of the season, though each remain eligible for the championship and can compete in any category. Ekström did this in 2023 when he raced the Dakar for Audi before switching to the T3 class (now Challenger) for the next three rounds, then returned for the finale. Peterhansel’s co-driver Édouard Boulanger has been linked to Nasser Al-Attiyah of Prodrive, who recently split with his navigator Mathieu Baumel, though neither have confirmed a partnership.

The Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge, the next race in the championship, begins 26 February.