Audi and Joest Racing won several teams' championships together in both the American Le Mans Series and the FIA World Endurance Championship. In 1998, after being associated with Porsche for many years, Joest Racing signed a works contract with Audi to support them for the 1999 24 Hours of Le Mans. Joest helped them build and develop the Audi R8R. Audi also supported an LM-GTP entry, the R8C, developed by Racing Technology Norfolk.
While the British R8Cs never worked properly, the two Joest R8R were reliable, yet too slow to finish better than 3rd and 4th against one of the works BMW V12 LMR and a Toyota GT-One. Audi and Joest went back to develop the highly successful R8, winning its maiden race at the 2000 12 Hours of Sebring, and going on to win at Le Mans. Between 2000 and 2002, the R8 cars took a hat-trick of wins at Le Mans, Sebring, and Petit Le Mans, as well as American Le Mans Series titles in each year.
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 support by Joest mechanics. In 2004, Audi returned to DTM touring car racing, now officially backing up the Abt Sportsline effort. Joest and Abt fielded Audi A4s in the series.
In 2006, Joest began 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, replicating that performance a year later and again in 2008, both times against Peugeot's diesel 908 HDi FAP coupe.
In 2009, Joest and Audi introduced the Audi R15 sports car, the replacement for the R10. In 2011, the Audi R18 TDI won the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Audi Sport Team Joest entered a pair of Audi R8 LMS GT3s in the 2011 Bathurst 12 Hour. For the first part of 2012, with the collapse of the Peugeot racing program, Audi ran near-unopposed in the first races of the 2012 FIA World Endurance Championship. The R18 TDI won the 2012 12 Hours of Sebring in its last race and its successor, the Audi R18 Ultra, won the 2012 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps. In the 2012 24 Hours of Le Mans, Joest Racing Audis won the top 3 positions with two R18 E-Tron Quattros finishing 1st and 2nd and one Audi R18 Ultra taking 3rd. In late 2016, Audi Sport announced that they would leave the FIA World Endurance Championship.
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