2010 is the eleventh year of the "new DTM". And for the eleventh time, Phoenix Racing is competing as a team. With Alexandre Prémat and Mike Rockenfeller, the Audi Sport Team Phoenix is valiantly fighting for points at the internationally recognised Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters and is definitely aiming at the first rankings. With Audi A4 DTM, the team from the industrial estate Nürburgring in Meuspath wants to set a course once more and obtain one of the topmost positions within the rating of the best one-year-old cars.
Everything once started with touring cars, and even today, touring car races are the field of Phoenix Racing. Back in 1999, Ernst Moser decided for a courageous measure and founded his own racing team: Phoenix Racing. By now, Phoenix has already been an established factor within the popular DTM for a long time.
As Audi Sport Team Phoenix, the highly motivated team from the Eifel is undergoing its third era within the DTM at the moment. Since Opel's parting, Phoenix has been representing the four rings since 2006, 2010 being the fifth DTM period with Audi. Pierre Kaffer, Christian Abt, Alexandre Prémat, Oliver Jarvis and now Mike Rockenfeller sat and are sitting behind the steering wheels of the fast cars from Ingolstadt which Phoenix prepares and employs in every race with the utmost meticulousness and accuracy. With Oliver Jarvis in the ninth place, a Phoenix Audi pilot made it among the best ten in 2009. 2008 Phoenix reached its, up to now, best team rating within that time - results that are more than respectable, especially as Phoenix is competing against all the mere works teams that are employing recent cars.
The A4 represents two chapters of Phoenix' eleven years' history at a time. After all, everything started with the A4 in the year 1999 when Ernst Moser bought two used A4 quattro in Australia unseen and had them taken to Germany by plane. Phoenix Racing used these two cars coloured in striking dark green during its first year. At the super touring car championship (STW), Michael Bartels came seventh and Arnd Meier obtained the ninth rank. Moreover, in November 1999, Bartels made the first major international victory and won the world finals in Macau.
Between Audi's STW year and the recent Audi era, there are six years with Opel. This was a time that gave Ernst Moser and his young team a lot of ups and downs. 2000, the debut period of the new DTM, even was the most successful year, for example. Manuel Reuter was vice champion with the Opel Astra V8 Coupé, and the Opel team Phoenix also shone in the team rating, having obtained the second rank. Besides of Manuel Reuter and Michael Bartels who were active in the first period, the Phoenix Opels were also steered by Yves Olivier, Joachim Winkelhock, Peter Dumbreck, Timo Scheider, Laurent Aiello, Marcel Fässler and Heinz-Harald Frentzen. However, also the renowned and highly experienced drivers couldn't change the fact that Opel was not successful in obtaining top ranks in the contest for the hotly desired DTM crown, neither with the Astra V8 Coupé nor with the Vectra V8 GTS.
With its four victorys, Phoenix Racing holds the third position in the eternal ranking (from 2000), after AMG/HWA's and Abt's works teams. Furthermore, it can boast of four pole positions and three fastest rounds.
Although the pilots sit alone in their cockpit turning the steering wheel and accelerating vehemently, the DTM means sport in a team. And this is exactly why the DTM is a perfect arena for Phoenix where teamwork is the base of its whole success since its foundation. Within the DTM, the optimum interaction between the driver, the vehicle engineer and the data engineer concerning the specific calibration of the sensitive racing cars are of the same importance as the right racing strategy that is defined by the team leaders and the engineers at the command post and at times changed within mere seconds. However, the pit stops are the highlight of perfect teamwork where a dozen of agile mechanics dart to the car and succeed, at times, in changing all of the four wheels within less than three seconds causing even the formula 1 teams to marvel. And exactly this pronounced human teamwork is one of the special virtues distinguishing the well attuned team from the Eifel and increasing its power - for a successful DTM period 2010.
