Peter Mertens appointed as new Board of Management Member for Technical Development at AUDI AG

Rupert Stadler, Chairman of the Board of Management of AUDI AG, praised Mertens as a specialist with an exceptional breadth of experience: “Mertens has exceptionally broad technical expertise and an international background in the automotive industry. These are ideal qualifications for him to make further progress with the Technical Development division at Audi.”

After his apprenticeship as a toolmaker, Peter Mertens studied production technology at Ostwestfalen-Lippe University of Applied Sciences. In 1985, he gained a master of science degree in industrial engineering and operations research at Virginia Polytechnic Institute in the United States. Between 1985 and 1990, he was head of the technology transfer department at the University of Kaiserslautern, where he gained a doctorate in engineering.

His first position in the automotive industry was at the then Mercedes-Benz AG, where he passed through several management positions as of 1990. In 1996, he was appointed chief executive of Tegaron Telematics GmbH, a joint venture between DaimlerChrysler Services AG and Deutsche Telekom AG in Bonn. In 2002, he moved to Adam Opel AG, first as executive director for medium-sized and large model series. This was followed by responsibility for the compact cars of General Motors Europe in 2004 and for all compact cars of General Motors worldwide in 2005. In late 2010, Mertens was appointed to the management board of Jaguar Land Rover and was responsible for corporate quality for the entire Tata Motors Group including Jaguar Land Rover. As of March 2011, he was Senior Vice President Research & Development at Volvo Car Corporation.

Peter Mertens was born in 1961. He is married and has three children.

André Konsbruck – Biography

André Konsbruck was born in Luxembourg on September 23, 1967.

After completing his studies in business management at the Université Paris-Dauphine, he began his career in 1992 at Volkswagen AG as Product Manager for the Audi 100. In 1994, in the course of the realignment of Audi Sales, Konsbruck moved to AUDI AG in Ingolstadt as Head of Sales Promotion Germany.

Starting in 1995, Konsbruck was responsible for three years for Marketing Germany, before moving to the export business as Sales Manager Italy. Starting in 2000, he first headed the Southern Europe/Africa region and later the Southwest Europe region, and subsequently took over as Head of Worldwide Sales and Dealer Development at Audi.

Starting in 2006, Konsbruck was Head of Sales Overseas; before he moved to Audi UK in 2013 as Managing Director.

After three years abroad, André Konsbruck took over as Vice President Sales Americas at AUDI AG in Ingolstadt on October 1, 2016.

Audi wins FIA GT World Cup in Macau

Fabian Plentz from Hanover finished as the second-best driver of an Audi R8 LMS. The 28-year-old Macau rookie from Team HCB-Rutronik Racing took position eight overall, making him the third-best driver in the group of entrants not to have been nominated for the manufacturers’ classification. Plentz had won the DMV GTC racing series in the Audi R8 LMS in October.

Chris Reinke, Head of Audi Sport customer racing, was delighted about Audi’s fourth victory in Macau and the first World Cup title of the R8 LMS: “The most important thing for us is that Laurens is okay. This shows how safe our cars are. It’s arguably a little strange to win this way. It was a very intensive race. Fortune and misfortune always play a role in Macau, but one of the prerequisites for success was the fact that we were in contention for the top spot in all sessions. That’s why I’m happy about the title in the FIA GT World Cup. Congratulations also to Fabian Plentz on his strong performance.”

The two DTM campaigners Edoardo Mortara (Audi Sport Team WRT) and Nico Müller (Phoenix Racing Asia) had already lost their chances of clinching a good result in the qualification race on Saturday. Mortara had started from pole position, but dropped to 13th place following an accident. On Sunday, from grid position 16, he advanced to 13th place. At the end of the year, the current DTM vice-champion is going to switch from Audi to Mercedes. Müller was not able to start on Sunday because his Audi had been too heavily damaged in an accident the day before.

In three weeks’ time, Laurens Vanthoor and his teammates will be battling for another international title for Audi, the 12-hour race at Sepang coming up in Malaysia. Before the finale of the Intercontinental GT Challenge, the Belgian is leading the drivers’ standings with a six-point advantage. 

– End –

Final pole position for Audi in Bahrain

While the fastest Audi achieved an advantage of 0.264 seconds on the averaged two best laps, the sister car, number 7, set the fourth-best time. André Lotterer (D) and Marcel Fässler (CH) were short 0.491 seconds of their teammates’ result. “I’m not completely happy today,” said the German. “On both outings, I made a braking mistake on entering turn one. But I’m confident for Saturday because we have a good car over the distance.” Marcel Fässler, who together with Lotterer had clinched three pole positions this year, was unhappy with his performance as well: “My car felt good, but I simply didn’t manage a perfect lap.”

For Audi, this marked the 81st pole position in total since the beginning of the LMP program in 1999, and the 16th best time in qualifying on 41 FIA WEC weekends since 2012. “Congratulations to the squad on this tremendous final performance,” said Stefan Dreyer, Head of LMP at Audi Sport. “We’ve laid a solid foundation for showing everything once again in our final LMP race. ‘Thanks a lot’ to the squad of number 8 for the top performance in changing the engine during the time between free practice and qualifying. We’re confident after the practice and qualifying sessions. We have an endurance race before us in which we intend to say goodbye to the WEC with maximum success.”

The 6 Hours of Bahrain will start on Saturday at 16:00 local time (14:00 CET). Eurosport is going to offer free video live streaming of the entire race on its German website and will show the final stage (17:00–20:00 CET) live on Eurosport 1. Audi is keeping its fans up to speed on Facebook (AudiSport) and Twitter (@audisport).

Qualifying results

1 Di Grassi/Duval/Jarvis (Audi R18) 1m 39.207s

2 Bernhard/Hartley/Webber (Porsche) 1m 39.471s

3 Dumas/Jani/Lieb (Porsche) 1m 39.669s

4 Fässler/Lotterer/Tréluyer (Audi R18) 1m 39.698s

5 Conway/Kobayashi/Sarrazin (Toyota) 1m 40.222s

6 Buemi/Davidson/Nakajima (Toyota) 1m 40.776s

7 Imperatori/Kraihamer/Tuscher (Rebellion) 1m 45.091s

8 Brundle/Rast/Rusinov (Oreca-Nissan) 1m 49.672s

9 Lapierre/Menezes/Richelmi (Alpine-Nissan) 1m 49.690s

10 Bradley/Lynn/Rao (Oreca-Nissan) 1m 50.034s

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Audi to battle for FIA GT World Cup in Macau

Three times in succession – from 2011 to 2013 – Edoardo Mortara has decided the Macau GT Cup in his favor with Audi to date. However, the race on the legendary track in the tradition-steeped Chinese metropolis has only enjoyed FIA GT World Cup status since last year. The city street circuit features a 250-km/h turn as well as some hairpins. The track being narrow throughout requires special handling of the race cars. On two previous occasions, Mortara, as a race driver for the Group, had decided the Formula 3 Grand Prix in Macau. The Italian will leave Audi at the end of the year. “Obviously, I’m going to give my all once again in my last race for Audi to say goodbye with a victory,” says the current DTM vice-champion. In Audi Sport Team WRT, the 29-year-old pro will be on the grid in car number 7. The sister car, number 8, will be driven by Laurens Vanthoor. The 25-year-old Belgian has won three international GT Championships and four 24-hour races in the Audi R8 LMS. He is familiar with the 6.12-kilometer circuit from his Formula 3 days as well and competed in the GT race there two years ago too. 

Audi DTM driver Nico Müller, on the other hand, will be breaking new ground and is practicing the track in the simulator. “In Macau, the world’s best GT campaigners are pitted against each other. There are many Macau specialists and I’ll be racing there for the first time, which is a pretty stiff challenge,” says the Swiss. However, having won a DTM race at the Norisring this year, he has proven how fast he is on city street circuits. The 24-year-old pro is going to compete for the German Phoenix Racing team. His teammate, contesting the event under Audi Hong Kong’s entry, is Marchy Lee. He became the champion of the first Audi R8 LMS Cup season in 2012 and is intimately familiar with the circuit through the street canyons from several races he has contested in the Audi R8 LMS.