Top performance through perfection

As a vehicle supplier, Audi supports the T-Mobile Team for major national and international cycle races: for example the Tour de France, the Giro d'Italia, the Tour de Suisse and the Tour of Spain.

With its vehicles, Audi not only provides an ever-present support service during the race; it also keeps the athletes a step ahead when not involved in races – thanks to one vital feature that all the vehicles have in common: quattro four-wheel drive. The fleet of vehicles equipped with this technology keeps the athletes and their support teams travelling as safely and dynamically as when racing. Anyone who has ever savoured the mobility, comfort and safety of quattro permanent four-wheel drive will never again willingly forgo it.

The racing team's success story begins in 1991, when it still competed under the name of Team Deutsche Telekom. The team celebrated its first major success in 1996, with Bjarne Riis winning the Tour de France for the first time.

The best overall season came just one year later: in 1997 Jan Ullrich became the first German to win the Tour de France, and was voted "World Sportsman of the Year". Erik Zabel – with 18 wins to his name – was voted the "Most Successful Professional Cyclist of the Season". The team was likewise successful, topping the team rankings in the Tour de France.

The T-Mobile Team has since secured a permanent place among the world's best. Jan Ullrich finished the Tour in second place overall on three occasions, won the Tour of Spain in 1999 and Olympic Gold in 2000 in the road race in Sydney. Erik Zabel has earned the privilege of wearing the green jersey six times in Paris in the Tour de France. Other riders, too, demonstrate the strength of the T-Mobile Team: Alexander Winokurow finished third overall in Paris in 2003 and Andreas Klöden second overall in 2004, with the German Champion jersey on his back.