Arburg has decided to continue its sponsorship involvement in DTM motor racing for the 2026 season. In one of the best-known international touring car series, the German machine manufacturer will once again be a partner of the ABT Sportsline team, regarded as the most successful active team in the history of DTM. The continuation of the cooperation follows the positive experience of the first year of the sponsorship agreement.
Since 2021, the organiser of the DTM series has been ADAC, the German automobile club. The cycle comprises short, dynamic races at the highest sporting level, broadcast live on television and online. In contrast to endurance races, DTM does not provide for driver changes, which further emphasises the importance of individual performance, technical precision and teamwork within a short time window.
For Arburg, sports sponsorship has for many years been one of the tools for building brand recognition, developing business relations and presenting the company’s values in defined target groups. In the case of DTM, the decisive factors are the scale of the series’ reach and its technological profile, which is closely related both to the machine manufacturer and to many of its customers from the plastics processing and automotive industries.
Linking technology, emotions and brand
The company’s management emphasises that choosing DTM as a sponsorship platform is not a random decision or merely a way of being present at a media-attractive event. As Managing Partner Juliane Hehl points out, the key factor is the convergence of topics and values between motor racing and the company’s industrial activities.
Juliane Hehl comments on Arburg’s involvement as follows: "We do not view our commitment to the DTM as an end in itself, nor simply because this is a huge spectacle with glamour appeal. For a machine manufacturer like Arburg, the DTM is extremely close to the interests of many of our customers and their employees. The points of contact for the Arburg brand are compelling. These range from the ultimate technological precision that determines victory or defeat, to the sound teamwork required to achieve innovation and peak performance on a daily basis and also extends to the people whose shared spirit of endeavour make such powerful, sometimes even radically disruptive solutions possible. This set of attributes is shared by Arburg and ABT alike. Which is why this sponsorship is exactly the right way for us to convey and emphasise the fundamental elements of our brand."
This statement highlights the clear link between the technical requirements of modern motor racing and the demands placed on machinery and systems for plastics processing. Precision, reliability, teamwork and the ability to implement innovation quickly are regarded in both areas as key factors of competitive advantage.
Business dimension and building trust in technology
Managing Partner Michael Hehl points to additional benefits resulting from being present in the DTM environment. "We share common values with this racing series and with our partner ABT. Our wish is to build trust in technology, not least at an emotional level, thereby making a powerful statement for our technology-led industry. Another exciting aspect is the business networking to which this environment lends itself so well. This is a very important platform, of great benefit to the development of our business. In 2025, our first year here, the opportunities that this sponsorship offers became very clear to us. This year, we aim to continue leveraging this commitment for our company and to expand it successfully."
This statement underlines that, in addition to image building, Arburg sees DTM as a tool for deepening relations with customers and technology partners. Contact with decision-makers from various industrial sectors during events accompanying the races complements traditional B2B communication channels such as trade fairs, conferences and technical presentations.
The ABT partner meeting took place on 19 February 2025 at the headquarters of sponsor Arburg in Lossburg. The two Managing Partners, Juliane and Michael Hehl, in front of the ABT Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO2.
ABT Sportsline: from Audi to Lamborghini
The 2025 season marked the beginning of a new phase in DTM for ABT Sportsline. After 25 years of competing with Audi cars, the team entered the series for the first time with vehicles from the Italian brand Lamborghini. This change coincided in time with the start of Arburg’s sponsorship.
The year 2025 was also an anniversary year for the Abt family. Exactly 75 years earlier, Johann Abt had competed in his first race. In the following decades, almost 100 drivers raced under the Abt name. ABT Sportsline itself has won a total of ten championship titles and 78 race victories in DTM, achieving 259 podium finishes, 92 pole positions and 85 fastest laps. Among the drivers associated with the team, in addition to successive generations of the Abt family, DTM fans remember such names as Laurent Aiello, Mattias Ekström and Timo Scheider. In the 2025 season, the DTM driver line-up for ABT Sportsline consisted of Mirko Bortolotti and Nicki Thiim.
The team’s continuity and sporting record are among the factors that attract partners from technology, automotive and consumer sectors. For Arburg, which operates globally in the plastics processing machinery segment, cooperation with a recognisable and successful team provides an opportunity to reach a wide audience while maintaining a technical rather than purely lifestyle-oriented communication profile.
Partner portfolio and industrial environment
The commercial dimension of the cooperation between ABT and Arburg is also reflected in the line-up of other sponsors associated with the racing team. In the 2025 season, ABT Sportsline’s partners included, among others, Red Bull (energy drinks), Sonax (car care products), Schaeffler (drive technology) and MAN (trucks and buses), as well as Ravenol (lubricants) as a technical partner. Some of these brands are part of Arburg’s customer or supplier environment, which further reinforces the networking aspect of the sponsorship project.
The presence of well-known global brands in a single sponsorship environment promotes the development of new links within supply chains, including those relating to plastic components, production systems and engineering services. From the perspective of the machinery and polymer industries, DTM functions as a contact platform for material producers, converters, technology suppliers and end users from the automotive sector.
Media reach and DTM as a communication platform
The organisers of the DTM series provide data demonstrating the broad media reach of the cycle. In 2025, the races were broadcast live and relayed to 185 countries worldwide, reaching a total of more than 500 million viewers. After just four rounds, at the halfway point of the season, around 1,100 articles on the series had been published in German print media alone.
Digital channels and social media also play a significant role. According to the data provided, a total of 8,752 social media posts related to DTM reached 694.5 million recipients worldwide. The joint DTM team presentation prepared by ABT Sportsline and Red Bull in the Alps, released in February 2025, became a viral piece of content. In less than ten hours after publication, the video achieved more than one million views on Instagram alone, and in the following days this number more than doubled.
The 2025 season also saw an increase in attendance at the tracks. A total of 516,500 spectators attended eight rounds of the cycle, which in the DTM Check 2025 summary was recorded as a clear rise in visitor numbers at all racing venues. For sponsors such as Arburg, this translates into increased brand exposure in mass media and the opportunity for direct contact with business partners during events.
Against the backdrop of the growing role of cross-industry sponsorship projects in manufacturing, Arburg’s decision to extend its cooperation with ABT Sportsline and remain a DTM sponsor in 2026 fits into a broader trend of combining technology communication with high-reach sporting events. For the plastics and plastics processing machinery sector, this is an example of using motorsport as a platform to showcase engineering capabilities and build relations with key customer industries.
