The Haupt Racing Team, known as HRT, was founded in 2020 by former DTM driver Hubert Haupt. It grew out of the successful Black Falcon environment, from which HRT inherited much of its crew and its Mercedes-AMG customer racing experience. Right from its debut year, the team scored class wins in the NLS series on the Nürburgring Nordschleife as well as in the GT World Challenge Europe, an impressive start for such a young outfit.
In 2021, Ulrich Fritz, the long-time former HWA boss, joined the team as managing director, and HRT took the leap into the DTM. The debut could hardly have gone better: Maximilian Götz secured the drivers’ title for HRT and Mercedes-AMG in the team’s very first GT3 season, a breakthrough that underlined the ambitions of the outfit from Meuspath.
In 2025, HRT made a manufacturer switch that turned heads in the German touring car series: the team moved from Mercedes-AMG to Ford and has since competed as HRT Ford Racing, or HRT Ford Performance, with the Ford Mustang GT3. The switch also marked a historic moment for the American manufacturer, whose return to a DTM podium had been 37 years in the making before rookie Finn Wiebelhaus made it a reality at the Lausitzring.
Wiebelhaus embodies another key element of the HRT philosophy: its own driver development. The 19-year-old won the junior classification in the ADAC GT Masters in 2025, becoming the first driver to make the direct jump from the team’s own Road to DTM programme into the top tier of German motorsport. He is also a Ford Racing development driver, meaning HRT, together with its karting team, now covers the entire driver development pyramid.
For the 2026 season, HRT Ford Performance is fielding two further developed Ford Mustang GT3 Evo cars featuring a revised aerodynamics package. Alongside Wiebelhaus, experienced Ford factory driver Arjun Maini lines up for what is already his sixth DTM season. Managing director Ulrich Fritz is deliberately building on continuity, aiming to steadily push the Mustang GT3 Evo towards the front of the field.