Whether it’s the Dakar, the Monte, or last weekend’s 24-hour endurance race in Daytona, the motorsport customers of the KW automotive group continue on the winning track. It will be spring before the motorsport season in Germany start again.
At the 24-hour race the Porsche motorsport customers won the GTD Pro and GTD classes. Porsche drivers Matt Campbell, Mathieu Jaminet and Felipe Nasr secured the opening victory of the IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship in the GTD Pro class with the Pfaff Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R (#9) ahead of the Ferrari from Risi Competizione.
Third place went to the KCMG Porsche 911 GT3 R (#2) with the driver quartet of Laurens Vanthoor, Patrick Pilet, Dennis Olsen and Alexandre Imperatori.
Other GT3 cars with KW racing dampers were the new BMW M4 GT3 (#25) from BMW Team RLL in seventh, the Porsche 911 GT3 R (#79) from WeatherTech Racing in eighth and the second BMW Team RLL BMW M4 GT3 (#24) in ninth. In the GTD class, KW customer team Wright Motorsports crossed the finish line first in the Porsche 911 GT3 R (#16).
Running seventh and tenth were the Porsche 911 GT3 R #64 and Porsche 911 GT3 R #99. In the run-up to the 24-hour race, Porsche customer team RS1 (#28) won the BMW M Endurance Challenge round at Daytona with their Porsche 718 GT4 RS Clubsport.
It will be spring before the motorsport season in Germany start again. The popular Nürburgring endurance series on the Nürburgring Nordschleife will not begin until March 2022.
But motorsport customers of the KW automotive group are already celebrating their first victories. In the over 8,000-kilometer Rally Raid through the deserts of Saudi Arabia, Reiger customers won the Dakar Rally.
Places one to six were exclusively held by vehicles with Reiger dampers. It was a similar story at the World Rally Championship opener in Monte Carlo. Sébastien Loeb and Isabelle Galmiche in the Ford Puma Rally1 (#19) were victorious.
Second went to Sébastien Ogier and Benjamin Veillas in the Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 (#1) ahead of Craig Breen and Paul Nagle in the Ford Puma Rally1 (#42). Kalle Rovanperä and Jonne Halttunen in the Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 (#69) finished fourth, while Gus Greensmith and Jonas Andersson in the Ford Puma Rally1 (#44) crossed the finish line in fifth.
Installed in numerous race cars from factory: KW and Reiger suspensions
The KW automotive group is well positioned with its two suspension brands KW suspensions and Reiger Suspensions.
“While we focus primarily on developments for circuit racing here in Fichtenberg, our motorsport applications for off-road use are developed and manufactured by our colleagues at Reiger in the Netherlands.”
“We work closely together on this. A rally car has already been on our 7-post vertical vehicle dynamics rig,” says KW Motorsport Manager Dipl.-Ing. (FH) Thomas Rechenberg.
For several years select car manufacturers have relied on KW and Reiger developments in their customer racing programs and racing operations.
In circuit endurance races within various championships, many cars in the GT3 and GT4 classifications like the BMW M4 GT3, Porsche 911 GT3 R, Mercedes-AMG GT4, Porsche 718 GT4 RS Clubsport and Toyota GR Supra GT4, are equipped with KW Motorsport dampers.
“Now, we are developing the shock absorbers for a customer racing car that will have its first race in 2023, and in 2022 we will equip a certain DTM motorsport team with our shocks for the first time.”
Carmakers, such as Ford, Subaru, and Toyota, rely on Reiger’s dampers in rally racing. For example, the top five at the opening round of the World Rally Championship were all cars equipped with Reiger dampers. Reiger Suspension is also a partner for many other off-road championships.
Photo BMW Motorsport, Porsche Motorsport, Reiger Suspension, Red Bull Content Pool, KW
