Bortolotti and Niederhauser hired by Audi

Audi Sport has announced their GT works driver for the 2020 season.

There were just ten drivers in the programme in 2019, but that has been extended to twelve.

Mirko Bortolotti and Patric Niederhauser are the new employees to race in the Audi R8 GT3 Evo cars all over the world.

Niederhauser has been racing Audi cars on/off since 2017 in things like the ADAC GT Masters, but now he is directly under contract with Audi Sport. He won the 2019 ADAC GT Masters title with Kelvin van der Linde for the HCB-Rutronik Racing, and that achievement has given him a works seat for 2020.

24h Nürburgring 2019
Photo: Audi Sport

Bortolotti has been trying to beat Audi for the last six years. He arrives from Lamborghini, where he was hired as a factory driver, and if there was a Lambo on the entry list anywhere in the world, it was very likely for the Italian to be behind the wheel. Amongst all his achievements are two Daytona 24 Hours wins, the Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup title in 2017, and running at the top of the ADAC GT Masters. Before he raced GT cars, he was amongst the fastest drivers in single-seaters, winning the Formula 2 Championship in 2011. He was a test driver for Williams, Toro Rosso, and Ferrari in Formula 1.

The ten returnees at Audi Sport are Rahel Frey, Kelvin van der Linde, Mattia Drudi, Christopher Haase, Pierre Kaffer, Christopher Mies, Frank Stippler, Dries Vanthoor, Markus Winkelhock, and Frederic Vervisch.

The program for the Audi drivers will be series like ADAC GT Masters, International GT Cup, selected VLN races plus the Nürburgring 24 Hours.

The first job for (some of) the works drivers will be the Daytona 24 Hours in January – with a big chance of Bortolotti being in a car, as he is the defending winner in the GTD category.

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