Wolfgang Ullrich, (born August 27, 1950 in Vienna, Austria) is the former Head of Audi Motorsport, the sporting division of German automaker Audi since November 1993. Under his leadership, Audi won the

24 Hours of Le Mans The 24 Hours of Le Mans (french: link=no, 24 Heures du Mans) is an endurance-focused Sports car racing, sports car race held annually near the town of Le Mans, France. It is the world's oldest active Endurance racing (motorsport), endurance r ...

thirteen times: 2000-2002, 2004–2008, and 2010-2014.

Education

He studied for his degree in Vienna in automotive engineering. Ullrich is Doctor of Technical Sciences.

Early life

After graduation he joined

Steyr-Daimler-Puch Steyr-Daimler-Puch () was a large manufacturing conglomerate based in Steyr, Austria, which was broken up in stages between 1987 and 2001. The component parts and operations continued to exist under separate ownership and new names. History T ...

, but wishing to work in motorsport, he was contacted by Renault Sport offering a job with their F1 team. Shortly after, Renault Sport withdrew its offer because of budgetary restrictions imposed by the parent company. He ended up joining

Porsche Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG, usually shortened to Porsche (; see #Pronunciation, below), is a German automobile manufacturer specializing in high-performance sports cars, SUVs and sedans, headquartered in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany ...

to work on the TAG engine project, and after the withdrawal of the German manufacturer from F1 in late 1987, he went on to work on production engines. In the fall of 1993, when he worked at Gillet, he was contacted by Herbert Demel, a former university colleague and director of the competition department of Audi, Audi Sport, who asked him if he wanted to replace him in office to which he immediately agreed.

Sport boss at Audi

From 1993 through to 2017 Ullrich was the head of sports and special developments for Audi. In this role he was responsible for many different projects of Audi Sport, such as regulating the Audi A4 Super Touring, the Le Mans prototype Audi R18, the Audi RS5 DTM and the development of the diesel hybrid engine. From 2009 he was responsible for the development and expansion of the customer sport with the Audi R8 LMS. In November 2015, Ullrich was given a contract extension that allowed him to remain in his post past his 67th birthday in 2017. It was company policy at the Volkswagen Group at the time that all employees, save the top echelon of senior management, must retire at 65. When Ullrich took over as head of Audi Sport in November 1993, he oversaw its various successes in Super Touring, 13 victories at the

, as well as seven

DTM DTM may refer to: Sport * Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters, a motor-racing series staged annually in Germany since 2000 * Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft, a motor-racing championship staged in Germany from 1984 to 1995 Computing * Deterministic T ...

driver's titles and four DTM constructors titles. Ullrich was succeeded by

Dieter Gass Dieter or dieter may refer to: * A person committed to dieting People Dieter is a German given name (), a short form of Dietrich, from ''theod+ric'' "people ruler", see Theodoric. Given name * Dieter Althaus (born 1958), German politician ...

as the Head of Motorsport at Audi.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ullrich, Wolfgang 1950 births Living people Audi people