Customer Team
A Customer Team is a racing organization that purchases its race cars from a manufacturer or another team, rather than designing and building the vehicles themselves.
Think of it like buying a car from a dealership instead of building one from scratch in your own garage. In motorsport, customer teams take this approach because designing and manufacturing a competitive race car requires enormous resources, specialized engineering knowledge, and millions of dollars in investment. By purchasing ready-to-race vehicles, these teams can focus their energy and budget on racing rather than car development.
Customer teams are extremely common across many forms of motorsport. In GT racing, for example, teams regularly purchase cars from manufacturers like Porsche, Ferrari, Mercedes-AMG, and Audi. These manufacturers have dedicated customer racing programs that sell race-ready vehicles along with parts, technical support, and sometimes even driver recommendations. A team might buy a Porsche 911 GT3 R and then prepare it for competition with their own mechanics and crew.
The opposite of a customer team is a factory team or works team. Factory teams receive direct support from manufacturers, including financial backing, the latest technology, top engineers, and access to factory facilities. They often get new developments and upgrades before anyone else. Customer teams, by contrast, pay for their cars and receive more limited technical assistance, though manufacturers do provide support to help their customer teams succeed.
The financial model differs significantly between these two types of teams. Customer teams must cover most of their own costs, including purchasing the car, spare parts, transportation, and staff salaries. They often rely on sponsorships and sometimes hire paying drivers—racers who bring their own funding—to help cover expenses. Factory teams have many of these costs subsidized or fully covered by the manufacturer.
Customer racing has become a significant business for many manufacturers. Porsche, for instance, has built an entire ecosystem around customer racing, offering various models for different racing categories and even organizing one-make series like the Porsche Carrera Cup. Audi Sport customer racing similarly provides GT3, GT4, and touring car models to teams worldwide. These programs benefit manufacturers by increasing brand visibility, allowing real-world testing of their technology, and creating a pipeline of racing talent.
In some racing series, customer teams are the norm rather than the exception. NASCAR teams frequently purchase cars or major components from other organizations. In Formula E, several teams operate as customer operations, buying powertrains from manufacturer partners. The level of independence varies—some customer teams operate almost entirely on their own, while others have close technical partnerships with their suppliers.
Despite having fewer resources than factory operations, customer teams can still achieve impressive results. With skilled drivers, experienced mechanics, and smart race strategy, a well-run customer team can compete with and sometimes even beat factory-backed entries. This makes customer racing an accessible entry point for organizations wanting to compete at high levels of motorsport without the massive investment required to develop their own race cars from the ground up.