Joest Racing

Reinhold Joest began his career as a driver and team owner racing a Porsche 908/3 in the European Sportscar Championship, where he won the driver's title. He later switched to Porsche 935s, winning the 24 Hours of Daytona in 1980. The team won the DRM championship back-to-back with driver Bob Wollek in 1982 and 1983. During the 1982 season, with the Porsche 956 reserved exclusively for the factory team, Joest adapted a roof onto a Porsche 936 to enter the Group C World Endurance Championship, continuing with that car into 1983 until a 956 became available.

In 1984, in the absence of the factory Porsche team, Joest Racing won their first Le Mans with Klaus Ludwig and Henri Pescarolo in their Porsche 956 chassis number 117 — the famous "lucky #7" car. In 1985, despite limited factory support, Ludwig, Paolo Barilla, and the incognito German businessman "John Winter" defended the title in the same car, making Joest only the second team to win back-to-back Le Mans races with the same chassis.

Joest also won the ADAC Supercup title for teams in 1986, 1988, and 1989, and captured the Interserie title for drivers with Winter in 1985 and Bernd Schneider in 1991.

When the FIA introduced Formula One engine regulations to Group C in 1989, privateer teams like Joest found themselves disadvantaged. The team shifted to the IMSA GTP category from 1990, winning the 24 Hours of Daytona in 1991 with Wollek, Pescarolo, Frank Jelinski, Winter, and Hurley Haywood. The last IMSA victory with the Porsche 962 came at the Road America 500 in 1993.

Between 1994 and 1996, Joest also competed in the Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft, developing and racing an Opel Calibra. The team won the ITR Gold Cup at Donington Park in 1994 with Manuel Reuter and claimed the championship outright in its final year as a full international series in 1996 for Opel.

Joest returned to Le Mans in 1996, chosen by Porsche to run the WSC-95 — a Porsche-engined car based on the TWR Jaguar XJR-14 chassis — as backup to the factory 911 GT1 effort. Jones, Reuter, and Alexander Wurz won. In 1997, the same car wearing #7 won again with Michele Alboreto, Stefan Johansson, and Tom Kristensen, the latter scoring the first of his eventual nine Le Mans victories.

In 1998, Joest signed a works contract with Audi — whose CEO Ferdinand Piëch was a Porsche grandson — to support their 1999 Le Mans campaign. Joest helped develop the Audi R8R, which finished 3rd and 4th at Le Mans in 1999 behind a BMW V12 LMR.

Audi and Joest then developed the far more competitive Audi R8. The car won on its debut at the 2000 12 Hours of Sebring and went on to take a hat-trick of Le Mans victories between 2000 and 2002, as well as winning at Sebring and Petit Le Mans and claiming American Le Mans Series titles in each of those three years.

Audi scaled back their sports car programme at the end of 2002 to focus on backing the Bentley Speed 8 effort at Le Mans in 2003, with Joest mechanics providing support for the winning car. In 2004, Audi returned to DTM officially, with Joest and Abt Sportsline fielding Audi A4s.

In 2006, Joest and Audi introduced the diesel-powered R10, winning at Sebring and Le Mans that year, repeating the Le Mans win in 2007 and 2008 against Peugeot's 908 HDi FAP. The successor R15 debuted in 2009 but reliability issues allowed Peugeot to take 1-2 at Le Mans. A revised R15 TDI plus in 2010 swept the Le Mans podium after Peugeot suffered unexpected failures. The Audi R18 TDI won Le Mans in 2011, and at the 2012 event Joest Racing Audis claimed all three podium positions.

Audi Sport Team Joest also entered the 2011 Bathurst 12 Hour with two Audi R8 LMS GT3s, achieving a 1-2 finish — with Marc Basseng, Christopher Mies, and Darryl O'Young winning by 0.7141 seconds from Craig Lowndes, Mark Eddy, and Warren Luff.

In late 2016, Audi Sport announced its withdrawal from the FIA World Endurance Championship, ending the Joest partnership after eighteen seasons.

Following the end of the Audi era, Joest Racing took over management of the Mazda RT24-P DPi entry in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship from the 2018 season, helping Mazda secure five victories including wins at Watkins Glen, Road America, Sebring, and Daytona, and a second-place finish at the 2020 24 Hours of Daytona. That partnership ended in March 2020.

In 2021, Joest partnered with Podium Advanced Technologies to assist Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus in running two SCG 007 LMH hypercars in the FIA World Endurance Championship. Glickenhaus achieved podium finishes at the 2022 1000 Miles of Sebring, 2022 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps, and 2022 24 Hours of Le Mans, along with pole positions at Spa and Monza.