WEC: Audi introduces new technical director

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Audi Sport Technical Director Jorg Zander required the better part of five minutes to chronicle his career highlights prior to joining the German manufacturer. Given the impressive length of teams and accomplishments on his resume, his appointment as the successor to Martin Muehlmeier makes perfect sense, and with stints in Formula 1 at BMW, Brawn, Honda, and Williams, along with time at Toyota during its GT-ONE Le Mans program, Zander's experience as a race engineer, designer, and manager should help Audi to field a more formidable version of its LMP1-hybrid R18 e-tron quattro.

"I'm very grateful for the past 25 years, and now to work with Audi Sport, it is a fantastic opportunity for me," Zander said while meeting with a small group of journalists invited to Sebring to witness the new Audi R18 e-tron quattro (BELOW) during a week-long test program. "It's such a successful team, winning Le Mans 13 times. I spent two months with the team to gain certain aspects; I've met a lot of people to try and understand the competences there. The opposition is getting stronger; we have very strong teams competing against us. Together with [Audi Sport​ boss] Dr. Ullrich, we're looking to getting the organization strong, making sure we have capacities and competences where they are required to make a strong car to beat the others. Which we normally do... (laughs)."

Audi claimed two WEC wins in 2014, including the 24 Hours of Le Mans, but lost out on the P1 championship as Toyota won the majority of the 6-hour races before Porsche claimed its first victory at the season finale. For a storied program like Audi, winning two of eight races is a numerical imbalance Zander and the entire organization is looking to fix.

"We understand Porsche and Toyota raised the bar over the last two years, so our targets and aims are obviously driven by the potential and performance level of the competition," he said. "So we have to raise the bar too. There's obviously more demand on us to get it right."

With the World Endurance Championship season opener just over a month away, Zander won't have much time to settle in at Audi Sport, and says he's already turned his attention to next year's WEC P1 challenger.

"The 2016 car is already ongoing for quite a while; to be honest, the specification is almost settled, almost defined," he explained. "If you understand we have to take that car testing in autumn, some of the production time for the long-lead items can be 16 to 20 weeks, so we have to start producing stuff pretty soon. We're trying to understand what the opposition is doing, and I'm trying to tune one or two areas to get more out of the package at the moment. Of course, there's always immediate expectations."​