Top Stories of 2016, #3: Audi's endurance racing exit bombshell

The news that Audi would be withdrawing from its WEC programme for good, ending an unbroken spell of endurance racing involvement stretching back to 1999, was met with seismic shock across the motorsport industry in late October.

Highly informed speculation earlier in the month, via Sport Auto’s diligent Marcus Schurig, had suggested a potential cessation of the effort at the end of 2017, but the bombshell of an immediate stoppage shocked even the drivers within the team.

They, along with most others within the Audi Sport Team Joest squad, were only told of the news mere hours before it became public knowledge.

The signs had been there since the so-called VW ‘Dieselgate’ scandal rocked the business, automotive and motorsport worlds in September 2015. However, that particular episode is only one card in the whole deck which ultimately felled the Audi endurance epoch.

Just weeks before the start of the third season of Formula E in October, Audi had escalated its influence over the Abt team, which had carried VW signage in season two.

Truth was that Audi had been working on this project from the very start, and after two near title misses, the four-ringed manufacturer wanted to ensure it was part of the electric racing boom so that in season five, it could have greater influence on the powertrain alongside partners such as Schaeffler.

The strong likelihood is that the Formula E programme will witness a re-affirmed e-tron brand, which is the company’s signature for its hybrid and electric car lines.

The full future electrification, and indeed autonomous technology in the automotive industry, is a reality whether people like it or not; therefore motorsport is becoming a major branch of R&D for it.

While Audi rightly received a stellar send-off for its achievements in endurance racing, its clarity on why it was abandoning its endurance programme was less laudable. It detailed the Dieselgate mess only as "in the context of the current burdens of the brand" and then appeared to gloss over the news of its endurance withdrawal with the "future-orientated".

This was not only insulting to the WEC, but also disingenuous as Audi will continue in the DTM, a series with scant sustainable or relevant future tech credentials compared with WEC.

It was an unfortunate extrication for one of the founding members of the global sportscar series. There were some who pronounced a doomsday scenario for the championship, but this was wide of the mark. Yes, it was a blow, but not an insurmountable one.

Endurance racing has run rough and smooth since it began in an organised way back in the 1950s, and it will continue to do so. The good news for fans of this fascinating strand of the sport is that it has stronger foundations now than it ever has done, ones that will sustain the tremor of Audi’s withdrawal.

Audi took a fine final 1-2 in its final flourish at the 6 Hours of Bahrain last month. It was a genuine feel-good moment, one in which Dr Wolfgang Ullrich, the chief architect of the Audi endurance programme, rightly revelled.

Nobody could have denied this 21st century racing titan anything other than one final day in the sun.