Inside Audi Sport Customer Racing: Martin Kuehl

Martin Kuehl, the director of Audi Sport Customer Racing in Asia sat down with the DSC Editor at Suzuka during the 20 Hours weekend for a wide-ranging chat about motorsport in Asia, Audi Sport Customer Racing’s role in developing the emerging Asian motorsport marketplace, and the potential shape of things to come in the region.

Martin, the race is going on the background, we can hear the cars rumbling by Audi currently leading in a great battle underway for another strong position from one the other cars. This is a huge event for Audi in Asia.

“Absolutely. And it’s great to see that we had finally had such an internationally recognised field in an Asian endurance race, it really gives justice to the market, which has been developing very well over the past years. So it’s a great event to have.”

I was along at one of the press conferences. That’s featured throughout here, lots of manufacturer activation, two models launched in one of two huge hospitality setups. On this very floor, two models launched into Japan, the manufacturers are taking this race, this series of races very seriously.

“They are Blue Riband events, and that’s what they’re designed to do. From your perspective, looking after the sporting ambitions of the brand. Tell me what it means to actually have a hook to hang that on with an international race. Before we get into talking about the domestic side.

“Yeah, well, that’s exactly what we want that we have an internationally recognised platform with the best drivers, the best teams from all over the world, where we can put also our own events to it. And especially here in the Suzuka, we actually do a threefold activation, we have the Audi Sport headquarters with the factory entries on-site, then we have Audi Japan, with their own activities and the car launches.

“And then the rest of the customer Asia programme this year with the Audi Sport LMS Cup, our own brand cup. So we use this opportunity. And we’re very happy that we can do this to really bring everything together from global to Asian exposure.”

It’s very clear that you and your team are very active, I see your guys and yourself around in the paddocks that I’ve inhabited around Asia. And there do seem to be an increasing number of opportunities to get cars out there and racing with the Blancpain product in Asia that’s coming on strong, with Asian Le Mans Series with strong domestic products and a range of markets, including Thailand, including China, of course, getting bigger and bigger and as well as here in Japan.

Just how good is the marketplace, we’ve always talked about this as being the untapped resource. It’s not untapped now, is it?

“No, it’s a growth market. And if we maybe go back a couple of years, when we started our own Asian customer waiting platform, we were quite early in the market. In 2012, we had the first Audi R8 LMS cup set up for China. And then from the second year, we made it pan-Asian.

“At that time, there were hardly any prestigious regional series. And if you then look back now at what happened since then, we had our involvement, but also others. And you have Blancpain Asia now being very successful.

“Also, as you mentioned, Thai Super Series has been developing very, very well over the past two years, I would say. And, of course, China. So yes, there’s a huge opportunity for us to do even more here in the market. At the same time, I think we also need to mention that it’s as it always is, with new markets, maybe that a lot of new things spring up, a lot of new series. And it’s maybe also time to settle a little bit that you have the best ones flourish and the drivers and teams can concentrate on that.”

One of the things that shows the maturing marketplaces, some of the ambition that comes from some of these teams, and the bigger teams and more successful teams beginning to spread their wings, we’re beginning to see some of the Asian GT3 teams look a little further afield than their home market or in the continental market, that’s going to be a real buzz for you, and I can see from the smile on your face that’s a source of pride.

“I’ve been working in Asia for many years now. And I know that there is a lot of capability and know-how within the Asian teams already. There are very good Asian teams, and we see it with various manufacturers. And they are warming up their ambitions to actually also show it in other parts of the world.

“And I think it’s a good development. And from our side, we can only, for example, say what Absolute Racing has been doing over the past years as well as also the Chinese team TSRT, how they are performing within their first Blancpain season with us this year. It’s great steps forward. And they’re all looking forward to doing more.

“Lessons are learned whenever you walk into a new market, particularly the new product. We’ve had conversations about the Audi LMS Cup, and the pretty rapid growth of that. Then the evolution of that and the introduction into competition with the GT4 car, which for various, pretty regional, reasons didn’t take off in the way that GT3 did.”

What is the strategy for the Cup moving forward? You’ve got a high-quality entry, but a rather more compact entry than we’ve seen, in a marketplace where we as we just discussed, it is getting more crowded.

“Well, actually, two years ago, we made a decision that looking at the overall development of the industry in Asia, where do you have a lot of good multi-OEM series with, which are great platforms, especially for pro drivers that we changed our own Cup to a pure gentlemen format, to give them actually a race where they compete against each other.

“I think if you look at the race history over the last two years, it has shown that this has proven to be very competitive for them. They like it. We always had and we have this year again, going to the final at Sepang, we will have five guys who can actually still win the title.

“They closed up dramatically this weekend, so that was our strategy as a brand, to develop the cup towards the gentleman sector, knowing that the pros have a lot of other things to do at the moment in Asia, which is a good thing. And we are also involved there, of course, was Blancpain Asia and some sort of support for the teams there.

“Yes, and then we also introduced the GT4 and I agree with you GT3 definitely is to the main GT car that attracts Asian buyers.

“Maybe it’s also because it’s the pinnacle of GT racing. And a lot of people who are here who actually spend the money to do proper GT racing on a high level, they really want to do it on the highest level and show what they are capable of, which is a good thing. And we don’t yet have that maybe Sports Club, or track running culture in Asia as we do in other parts of the world. So for the GT4, it’s a bit of a different environment.

“But I wouldn’t actually rule out that the sector will further grow, especially if you look at China GT They have done a great job in actually not only building but also sustaining now in the second year a very good GT4 grid.

“And the future, I guess, also for GT4 is in regional series and not pan-Asian, it’s more complicated. Because in Asia, you have to ship things around. At the end of the day, whatever you put on a ship is there for a couple of weeks and the logistic costs are maybe the same, even if the car and the running might be a little bit more economical. But a lot of other things are the same costs if you will move around Asia. So a regional thing, I think, is there, something in China GT shows that it can be done.

In marketing terms, new is good, always, you’ve got two new things to deal with in the coming 12 months or so. The first is going to be a new product. Of course, the latest product from Audi Sport Customer Racing the R8 LMS GT2. The second is a place to race them, which is the addition to the Blancpain GT package of the Sports Club. So a purely gentleman based racing platform for effectively sprint endurance designed exactly for those cars?

We’ve obviously seen the car. We saw the car launched at Goodwood and then Tom Kristensen ran the car in anger at Laguna Seca for the first time. Your customers have had the chance to see it. What kind of interest has there been in the new beast?

“Well, I mean, the car is beautiful and everybody who has seen it on a picture or some of our Asian clients actually went with us to Spa where it was displayed. Everybody who saw it was like, “Whoa, that’s mega”, of course, they really love the looks. It’s a beautiful car.

“But we need opportunities to want to. I especially I think for us as Audi Customer Racing we are producing cars that people actually run, put them on the circuit. And it’s great ambition by SRO to have at least three races for the GT2 next year in Asia. And yeah, we’re definitely hoping that we will see some Audis on the track.

“At the moment it’s Porsche and us, sister companies, pushing this and I still hope actually that there will be more. Because of the functioning segment. I think we all need more.”

The two GT2 cars we have so far seen are very different cars.

One of my colleagues described Porsche looks like a kind of Gucci loafer and the Audi as a high-end Nike trainer. And that’s a good thing. Different is good?

“Yes, we were all very happy. When we saw the first pictures of the car, even the first drawings we thought “Wow, okay, something big is coming”.

“But we have to put it on the onto the road, we have to support our customers in being able to put it onto the circuit. And we have to convince also the customers that it’s not just a collector car or something that you put on a site somewhere but that you really should buy this one to race it against other gentlemen and have fun on a weekend with a sprint race, which is also very fitting format for this kind of guys”

What would you like to see in terms of your customers at this Suzuka race? Not the European teams coming in with the IGTC but your customers coming in?

“I would like to see more Asian teams running high profile entries. In our case Audis.

“There are teams like Zun Motorsport, who ran last year in Macau. TSRT is running in Blancpain Asia. Both are from China.

“I think that increasingly teams like this are looking over the border of China. So to actually come here to such a race, which is like, at the moment, in terms of endurance and GT3, the pinnacle in Asia, this would be something that I would really enjoy.”