JB Motorsport has taken their second consecutive win in the Swedish GT Championship, remaining unbeaten so far this year. Round two of the Championship was held at Mantorp Park this weekend.
The team performed well all weekend long and claimed pole position for the sixty minute race on Saturday. The race itself saw the JB Motorsport Audi R8 LMS, which was driven by Jan Brunstedt and Christer Lindholm, head on to a comfortable victory ahead of the field.
It was a great result for the Swedish team and they are looking forward to round three of the series, which will take place at the Göteborg City Arena on June 29.
Detroit is hosting the fourth meeting of the Pirelli World Challenge season, a temporary street course at Belle Island.
Race 1 has already been held today, with some good performances from the GMG Racing Audi R8 LMS cars. The Detroit race weekend has a smaller grid when compared to the previous rounds, with only 9 cars in the upper GT class. Right from the start the safety car made its appearance after a KIA crashed on the front straight. The cars were forced to stay behind the safety car for several minutes. The race went back to green and James Sofronas, the series leader with his #14 Audi R8 LMS, started to battle with Cadillac's Andy Pilgrim for third place. A few minutes later there was another crash and the safety car was deployed again, for a long yellow flag period. When the race resumed Sofronas was very fast and continued to push Pilgrim, but the Audi driver was simply out of time. James Sofronas finished the race in fourth. The race win went to Johnny O'Connel in the Cadillac CTS-V ahead of Randy Pobst's semi-works Volvo S60 in second and Andy Pilgrim's Cadillac CTS-V in third.
Another GMG Racing Audi R8 LMS doing well was the #24 car of Duncan Ende. Despite being far from the leading group, Ende battled well for fifth place against a Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG and a Porsche 997 GT3. Ende finished the race in seventh place.
Race 2 is set for tomorrow, a 50-minute sprint format. We wish the best of luck to James Sofronas and the whole GMG Racing Audi team.
The DTM is at the Red Bull Ring (Austria) for round 3 of the championship. You can watch the qualifying session Live right HERE. Live Timing is available right HERE.
Audi has already done well in the free practice session this morning. Five Audi RS 5 DTM cars made it into the top 10, you can read about that here. Live updates on Twitter from the official Audi Sport channelcan be seenhere.
The free practice session at the Red Bull Ring has seen an even spread within the top ten, between the Audi and BMW competitors. The third round of the DTM is taking place in Austria this weekend, and the Audi team is hoping to repeat their win from last time out at Brands Hatch.
BMW’s Joey Hand topped the session, but a duo of Audis were close behind him, filling the top three. Championship leader and Brands Hatch winner, Mike Rockenfeller (Phoenix), was again the top placed Audi, setting the second fastest time, just 0.225 seconds behind the BMW.
Filipe Albuquerque (Rosberg) took third position, followed by Edoardo Mortara (Rosberg) in fifth, Adrien Tambay (ABT) in sixth and Jamie Green (ABT) in seventh. The top ten featured five Audis and five BMWs, all separated by a mere 0.449 seconds.
The qualifying sessions is set for this evening, starting at 17:50 local time. We wish the best of luck for the Audi teams and drivers.
By Johan Laubscher The third round of the Australian GT Championship took place at Phillip Island last weekend. The two Audis from Melbourne Performance Centre and Minda Motorsport performed very well. Two sets of top ten finishes were achieved by the Audi R8 LMS and ultra teams. Other Side Productions has produced another Australian GT highlights video for the series. The highlights package featuring round three hat Phillip Island as been embedded below:
By Johan Laubscher The first round of the Caribbean Motor Racing Championship (CMRC) saw a dominant display by Doug Gore in the ATL Automotive ABT-Audi TT-R. The CMRC season opener was held at Dover in Jamaica last weekend, and the two Audis in the field both performed very well. More about the event and results can be read HERE. The Jamaica Observer has put together a great video featuring the ATL Racing team at Dover, that video has been embedded below.
All the emotion of the Blancpain Endurance Series is back this weekend, as the world's GT élite travels to England for the second round of the 2013 season, which is scheduled on another legendary track: Silverstone. In Monza's season-opener, the Belgian Audi Club Team WRT had a positive start, although results were influenced by race incidents and the best-placed of the WRT Audis finished fourth after losing the podium in the last corner. The Belgian squad is crossing the Channel determined to better, on a track that should be more favourable to the R8 LMS ultra. The three cars of Laurens Vanthoor-Stéphane Ortelli-René Rast, Edward Sandström-Frank Stippler-Christopher Mies and Nicky Mayr-Melnhof-Matt Halliday-Rahel Frey are all entered in the Pro category, where competition is particularly fierce.
"We are very happy to resume activity in the Blancpain", states Team Principal Vincent Vosse, "as this is really the top GT competition at the moment and a series I personally like very much. It's always nice to go to Britain, which is the cradle of modern motorsports and there are always so many fans, and Silverstone has always been a track where we have done well. The fact that it's a flowingly fast track suits the Audis well, although we know the R8 is not the fastest car in terms of pure performance. Last year we achieved two podium finishes, and we aim at being on the podium this time too. The competition, though, is extremely strong, once again, and there are plenty of very good cars and teams, with excellent drivers and great ambitions, but that's what we are too!"
With 60 cars entered, the Blancpain will indeed feature again a fabulous grid, and the battle will be fiercer than ever. A key addition will be the works car from Aston Martin, which will certainly aim at shining on home soil. "It will be certainly one of the cars to be watched more closely", confirms Sporting Director Pierre Dieudonné, "although not the only one, of course. But we know we also are among the strong teams. For the rest, there haven't been many developments since Monza. Only very minor adjustments have been made to the Balance of Performance, which in the Blancpain is working reasonably well. Needless to say, weather conditions may play a role, and the forecasts seem to point to changing conditions, but that is something pretty usual in Britain and nothing that can scare a ... Belgian team!"
Among the drivers, spirits are high and one man is looking for revenge. Edward Sandström shared with Mies and Stippler the best-placed WRT car at Monza and drove the last and incredibly lively stint, managing to preserve the third place from the fierce attacks of rivals until the last corner. Since then, the Swede has overcome the slight disappointment and reflects on what happened: "It was, of course, frustrating to lose the podium so close to the finishing line and because of the obstruction of a slower car", he concedes, "but it was still a good race and a good result. I fought well in the last stint, not only against rivals, but also against some pick-up problem, and there is always something to be learnt. Maybe when I stumbled into that slower car, I should have been less conservative, but I wanted to avoid taking unnecessary risks. Anyway, fourth was not a bad result with regard to the championship, especially at Monza, which was probably the most challenging circuit for us".
"Now we go to Silverstone", goes on Edward, "It's a track I adore, I am always excited at going there, and I think we will be competitive, despite the very strong opposition. The Audi always performed well there, especially in the fast corners such as Becketts, Copse and Stowe, and the WRT Team is working perfectly, in an excellent atmosphere. With 60 cars on the track, qualifying well will be important and also a challenge, as you cannot have a clear lap for yourself, and you need to choose the right group of cars to be with."
The weekend format, as usual, foresees free practice and pre-qualifying on Saturday, with qualifying on Sunday morning and the 3-hour race kicking off at 2:50 pm UK time (one hour later in continental Europe).
