What’s going on at HRT? As Motorsport-Whole.com has discovered from a dependable supply, the members of the DTM engineering workforce of the Ford outfit are mentioned to have submitted their resignations collectively a couple of days in the past, on July 31. On the heart is alleged to be skilled chief engineer Laurent Fedacou, who has been working for the Nurburgring-based workforce for the reason that finish of 2021.
The Frenchman additionally units the technical path for the Ford workforce’s different GT3 applications. Along with Fedacou, who labored as a Class 1 race engineer for the previous Audi works workforce Phoenix till 2019 after which at Venturi in Components E, 4 different engineers – all French – are additionally mentioned to be leaving.
These are the 2 DTM race engineers Clement Faye and Valentin Planque, who’re liable for Arjun Maini and Finn Wiebelhaus – and the 2 related efficiency engineers. However what’s behind this growth?
HRT declares restructuring in press launch
It’s attention-grabbing that each Fedacou and Faye have been noticed on Sunday on the workforce’s personal DTM check on the Nurburgring. As well as, the HRT workforce communicated on Tuesday in a mid-term evaluate that regardless of the upward development – Wiebelhaus and Maini lately secured the automobile’s first three DTM podium finishes ever – a restructuring was imminent.
Class 1 expertise: Is Laurent Fedacou leaving HRT together with some compatriots?
Foto: ADAC Motorsport
The workforce, which within the DTM scored six wins and, in 2021, the latest drivers’ title up to now for Mercedes-AMG, continues to be chasing its first win since switching to the Ford model in the beginning of 2025. After analyzing the primary half of the 2026 season, the conclusion was reached that “obligations have to be outlined extra clearly in some areas, choices made extra shortly, and processes streamlined,” workforce boss Ulrich Fritz is quoted as saying.
Within the course of, HRT “may also restructure its personnel in sure areas and strategically strengthen these groups. This offers us the chance to focus much more strongly on on-track efficiency. This isn’t about short-term reactions, however about sustainable constructions and a transparent imaginative and prescient,” Fritz makes clear.
Ulrich Fritz: No denial, however restructuring solely after the season
However what does that imply in concrete phrases? And to what extent does it should do with the circulating data that 5 vital engineers are leaving? “Sure, folks shall be leaving us,” Fritz, who’s now a shareholder within the HRT workforce, confirms when requested by Motorsport-Whole.com. “Nonetheless, we are going to end the season collectively.”
That explains why the engineers in query have been noticed on the DTM check final Sunday. Aside from that, on this case too there are presumably discover intervals that should be noticed.
Fritz doesn’t wish to go into particular names of who’s leaving the workforce. “I do not wish to remark in public on who’s coming and who’s going so long as such a structural change has not been finalized. As well as, personnel choices are confidential issues,” explains Fritz, though he additionally doesn’t deny the report.
“The system will not be constructed on particular person folks”
As the rationale for the restructuring on the finish of the yr, the previous DTM boss at Mercedes cites the big progress of the workforce, which fields greater than ten Ford Mustang vehicles in varied racing collection, in recent times. “We noticed that in a single space internally we now have a bit an excessive amount of manpower and in one other space a bit too little,” he says.
Hardly any workforce fields as many race vehicles as Haupt Racing Staff
Foto: Haupt Racing Staff
Fritz questions whether or not this implies shedding key folks, as a result of in his opinion, in recent times they’ve “constructed a system that isn’t based mostly on particular person folks, however on a workforce. Now we have all the time lived it in such a means that we will shift and change subjects and capacities in a modular means, as a result of we didn’t wish to be depending on people.”
Why so many French folks work at HRT
The cooperation with the French engineering academy ESTACA, which in Laval, 300 kilometers west of Paris, presents its personal motorsport specialization and offers the workforce with younger engineers, additionally performs a serious position. “We get the folks instantly throughout their sensible section – and in consequence we now have at the least 4 extra engineers per yr,” Fritz explains why so many French engineers work at HRT.
After this section, a few of them additionally transfer to different groups or search for different challenges. “That is why it is clear that on the finish of the yr we sometimes have a change – and that’s definitely the case once more this yr,” says Fritz.
Aside from that, on the finish of 2024 and the tip of 2025 HRT additionally misplaced two prime German engineers, Marius Avemarg and Dennis Nagele, who returned to the Mercedes-AMG setting with Winward and Landgraf.
Additionally due to the quite a few applications exterior the DTM, equivalent to GT World Problem Europe, Intercontinental GT Problem, the Nürburgring Nordschleife or ADAC GT Masters, the workforce employs quite a few engineers.
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