~ Audi Lease Specials

SA Bridgestone Production Cars and the Audi teams returning to Durban streets

2007 Durban Race

By Johan Laubscher

The South African Bridgestone Production Cars championship has provided many action packed race days for the South African fans. With some of the best drivers and teams in the country battling it out on track. The series will have a street race in Durban this year. The event will be part of the Top Gear Festival which will be held on a constructed street circuit in Durban during June 2012. The closing weekend of the festival will see a round of the Wesbank Super Series, of which the Bridgestone Productions Cars is a part of. Seeing the grid of Audis, BMWs, Subarus and the lower classes racing round a tight street circuit will be spectacular.

2012 Top Gear Festival Durban street track

This will not be the first time the series has graced the streets of Durban. In 2007, as part of the A1GP event in Durban on a street circuit, some of the national championships were invited as support events. The Bridgestone Production Cars was one of these series, and the racing it provided was spectacular. The cars battling and sliding around the twisty track made for a great spectacle which can be seen in the videos bellow.

The date for the race weekend is set for June 16. It remains to be seen how similar the 2012 race will be to the 2007 A1GP race, but one thing is guaranteed, the racing will be close and fast.

A total of five Audis are entered for the event, which includes four Audi S4 B8 race cars and one Audi A4 B7 3.2.

Photos hosted at Motorpics.co.za and TopGearFestival.co.za

More information:
MotorPics

Audi South Africa

Audi Motorsport in South Africa FB page

Unofficial Audi Sport FB page

Bridgestone Production Cars Website

Bridgestone Production Cars FB page

Top Gear Festival

Footage from the 2007 Durban races:

2007 Bridgestone Production Cars at Durban Race 1

2007 Bridgestone Production Cars at Durban Race 2

2007 Durban Race - Shaun Watson Smith - Terry Moss Racing Audi A4

2007 Durban Race - Melvil Priest - VMP Motorsport Audi A4

2007 Durban Race - Johan Fourie - Johan Fourie Racing Audi A4

Best of DavCrea about Audi Race Cars

Our friends at DavCrea have done great art works about Audi races cars. Here is the best of.

More Informations:
DavCrea official Facebook page

Phoenix Racing back to "Green Hell" and VLN Endurance Series

By Tarek Ramchani

Phoenix Racing has announced its full season commitment in the German Endurance Series. Also known as the VLN Langstreckenmeisterschaft Nürburgring or simply VLN, exclusively run on the big Nordschleife.

The Nürburgring based team is no stranger to the Nordschleife and the VLN Series. While racing mainly in ADAC GT Masters in 2011, the team did selected VLN events and even won the season finale overall with their Audi R8 LMS. For the 2012 opener, team Phoenix will field two Audi R8 LMS race cars with a strong and competitive driver line-up. The #5 Audi R8 LMS will have Audi works driver Oliver Jarvis and young German Rene Rast. Both aren't new to the team, Jarvis drove for Phoenix in the DTM series in 2008 and 2009. Rene Rast was a Phoenix driver last year in ADAC GT Masters. The sister #15 car has got a strong squad. Markus Winkelhock, long time Audi factory driver in the DTM will be joined by two Phoenix regulars, Frank Stippler and Christopher Haase, who both have a lot of experience with the Audi R8 LMS.

The two Audi R8 LMS cars will race in the top SP9 class which is open for FIA GT3 spec cars. Phoenix Racing will without a shadow of doubt be among the strong teams targeting for the outright win. The opposition will come from another Audi team (Raeder Motorsport), but mainly from AMG Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Porsche teams with most of them being factory backed teams.

The VLN Endurance Series will have a ten round calendar. The first race of the season is this weekend with the 59 ADAC Westfalenfahrt, a 4 hour event.

More Information:

Phoenix Racing official website

Phoenix Racing official Facebook

VLN official website

Truth in 24 II - the sequel of all sequels

By Johan Laubscher

For Audi and die hard motorsport fans alike the movie “Truth in 24” stands out as one of the best motorsport films made to date. It was a film which documented the first half of the 2008 season for Audi’s Le Mans sportscar program. It followed all the processes of the Audi team’s preparation and finally covered the 2008 Le Mans 24 Hours as well. The film successfully captured the spirit of Le Mans and portrayed the up and down emotional rollercoaster of the legendary race. The film was produced by InterSports and NFL Films and the American version had non-other than Transporter film series and Audi driving star, Jason Statham for the commentary of the film.

Le Mans 2008

This film, which was the brainchild of Audi America was brilliant. I was lucky enough to be at Le Mans in 2008 and I can personally vouch for this movie. The emotion portrayed was real, the tension of the battle was seen on every spectator. The race was dubbed: “The race of the decade” because of the David versus Goliath fight between the new faster Peugeot and the older Audi R10 TDI. I clearly remember when the rain started falling at about 3am local time, and a smile formed on my face knowing that the race for Audi had just begun. The next two hours saw Mr Le Mans, Tom Kristensen real in Jacques Villeneuve on the increasingly wet track, watching on the timing screens as the gap diminished. In the film that period is perfectly portrayed and it felt like I was reliving those two hours. The film was beyond breathtaking, I had tears in my eyes when the race finished live at the track and I had tears in my eyes again at the end of the film.

The film was clearly one of the best ever in this genre and many people share my feelings regarding the film. Thus it is clear that with the announcement that a sequel has been planned comes much excitement and anticipation. Audi fans will once again be treated to a great documentary, and with the prospect of watching an Audi film based on the 2011 Le Mans is something to look forward to. 2011 was one of the best Le Mans races in history with the battle for the win going straight to the line with only 13.8 seconds separating the top two places.

More information will soon be available at www.truth-in-24.com. At the moment the website only has the red image bellow, but the “coming soon” is consolation enough to the fact that we will be treated to yet another world class film production. The wait until the film's release seems almost unbearable.

Here are some great youtube videos from Truth in 24 "1"

Truth in 24 “1” – 30 second trailer

Truth in 24 “1” – 60 second trailer

Truth in 24: The Back Story by Garage419 and Matt Farah

Truth in 24 “1” (Full length film)

The Audi A4 STW and its reincarnation

By Johan Laubscher

For many of the older motorsport fans the words Super Touring spark excitement in their minds. Super Touring, also known as FIA Class 2 rules was a touring car formula that was born in Britain and quickly spread around the world. It was a two litre formula adopted by the BTCC which proved extremely popular with the fans. The racing in Super Touring was spectacular and fans could watch almost all the showroom sedans battling it out on the track. The age old term, “Win on Sunday and sell on Monday” was very evident and the manufactures came rolling in. All the manufacturers you can think of who build large volume sedans took part, which meant a healthy field of cars all over the world. The formula spread like wild fire all over Europe and the rest of the world, every continent had Super Touring racing.

The Audi A4 STW in the 1996 BTCC

One of the major players in the formula was Audi, who were the only competitor using four wheel drive. The original Audi Super Touring car was the Audi 80 Competition which was very successful and competed officially from 1993-1994. The Audi A4 (B5) was launched to the world in 1994 and would make its race debut in 1995 as the Audi A4 STW quattro (STW = Super Tourenwagen/Super Touring Car). The car was immediately a front runner taking many championships including a 1996 season clean sweep. The 1996 championship list included, the Championships from Britain, Germany, Italy, Australia, Belgium, Spain and South Africa, all of which were won by the Audi A4. The A4 was penalised for an unfair advantage and eventually four wheel drive was banned from this form of sanctioned motorsport in 1998.

Since then Super Touring came to an eventual death as development and running costs became astronomical. The formula was ended in the early 2000s and replaced by the S2000 rules for touring car. Many still consider Super Touring as a golden period for the sport and the S2000 rules never relived the glory days.

After the demise of the formula the second hand race-car market was flooded with old Super Touring machines. Many of the cars were picked up and raced in various national series. One of the most sought after models was the Audi A4, it had brilliant acceleration and grip levels. The Audi A4 has found a new popular home, and that home is on the hills of Europe. The car has become an extremely popular choice of car for hillclimb events as it is perfectly suited to the tight and twisty nature of the sport.

Dozens of the A4 STW cars have been used and are still being used in hillclimbs, often keeping up with and beating other purpose built rally cars, even ex-WRC cars. Audi A4 STW has been a dominating force in the Spanish hillclimb series where many of the cars still take part very competitively. The cars can be found gracing the hillsides all over Europe, from Spain to Greece and even the Canary Islands.

The hillclimb scene has really become the Audi A4 STW’s reincarnation, and by the looks of things the car will continue to be a weapon of choice for hillclimb drivers for many years to come. Hearing that glorious engine note at full power across the picturesque hillsides is enough to make anyone nostalgic to the good old days of Super Touring, long live the A4 STW.

Photos by Race Action

More at:

Race Action Motorsport Fotos & Videos FB Page

Race Action Motorsport Fotos & Videos Website

Just a few video examples of the A4 STW dominating the hillsides of Europe

Andreas Marko – Austrian Hillcimb Series (2012)

Panagiotis Cabilis – Greek Hillclimb Series (2012)

José A. López-Fombona – Spanish Hillclimb Series (2011)

Just go to youtube and search for "Audi hillclimb", you will not be disappointed...

Audi R8 LMS ultra victorious race debut

By Johan Laubscher

A lot of excitement has been surrounding Audi’s latest GT3 race car, the R8 LMS ultra. There has been no shortage of news regarding European teams acquiring and testing their new ultras and also many rumours about who is next in line to receive their new cars. Amongst all the news it has almost gone unnoticed that the Audi R8 LMS ultra has had its race debut and a successful debut at that.

An Audi R8 LMS ultra was delivered to the Chinese and Malaysian based Absolute Racing Team. Absolute Racing is a specialist motorsport team who compete in various championships. The team runs its own race program and also runs client teams. Their client teams receive technical support from Absolute Racing. One such client team is Philip Ma’s Team Hong Kong Racing (HKG).

The R8 LMS ultra had its race debut under the Team Hong Kong Racing banner with Philip Ma at the wheel. The car was entered for round 1 of the Asian GT Series sanctioned by FRD. The FRD sanctioned Asian GT Series is not the same as the AFOS “GT Asia”, these are two different series sanctioned by different organisations. The first round of the Asian GT Series was merged with the first round of the Malaysian Super Series (MSS), a series that runs exclusively on the Malaysian Sepang circuit. The race meeting was scheduled as a support event for the 2012 Malaysian Grand Prix.

For Absolute Racing, running the Team Hong Kong Racing effort, it was a race against time. The brand new ultra arrived just in time for the race weekend. The saying “fast right out of the box” was very applicable here, as the car had literally just been delivered, and it was very fast. Philip Ma had strong qualifying performances which he backed up in the races.

During the first race Philip Ma battled hard with Asian GT rival Frank Yu and finished ahead of his rival to claim victory in round 1 of the 2012 Asian GT Series. His Asian GT victory also saw him in fourth overall for the race results. A victorious race debut for the new Audi R8 LMS ultra.

Race 2 would see a chaotic start. The top three cars had a coming together just after the start which saw all three crash into the pit wall and ricocheted across the track. Philip Ma luckily avoided the wreckage and slotted into second place overall. The race remained under safety car conditions until the last lap when the cars were released for a one lap sprint to the line. Philip Ma grabbed the lead and managed to hold off his opposition to cross the line in first place. He was later given a 20 second penalty for passing under yellow. Despite this setback the car’s performance straight out of the box was clear and the car has much potential, and it is very fast.

Audi fans can be happy knowing that the new GT3 car had a victorious debut, and this builds further excitement as we wait for the various other new Audi R8 LMS ultras to debut around the world.

Photos by Absolute Racing

More information:
Absolute Racing website
Absolute Racing FB page
Team Hong Kong Racing
Asian GT Series

Video of Race 2 startline crash

Audi S4 quattros ready for Killarney racing action‏

Press Release from Audi South Africa

THE Audi S4 quattros sprang into action this season – which got the 2012 season off to an exciting start at Zwartkops Raceway. Michael Stephen (A1 – Engen Xtreme / Southern Sun) got into the swing of things from the outset by posting the fastest qualifying time for the Bridgestone Production Cars.

In the process Stephen claimed three bonus points – the highest number available for any one qualifying position. This helped put Stephen at the head of the Audi S4 quattro field of three of these thoroughbred race cars in competition in the WesBank Super Series.

With Stephen leading the trio, he is followed by his teammate Tschops Sipuka (A2 – Engen Xtreme / Southern Sun) and the Audi S4 quattro of Melvill Priest (A7 – Mueller Sport Medicine). The three Audi S4 quattros hold positions four, five and six of class A of the Bridgestone Production Car championship.

Priest joined the Audi marque from the start of this season and has some work to do yet to make his brand new Audi S4 quattro perform on par with the rest of the field. The first outing was still good enough to place him in the top two-thirds of the field.

Round two at Killarney will see the return of Johan Fourie (A9 - IndyOil / EPS) to the field. Fourie did not compete at the opening event of the season as he had still not finalised his sponsor for the year. With this resolved, he will make it to round two – and compete in front of his home crowd.

With Fourie's Audi S4 quattro added to the mix, a quartet of thundering thoroughbred power will thrill the Cape Town crowd and the second round of the WesBank Super Series is sure to be a spectacular event.

Audi South Africa

Photos hosted at www.motorpics.co.za

More information:

Audi South Africa

Audi Motorsport in South Africa FB page

Unofficial Audi Sport FB page

Bridgestone Production Cars Website

Bridgestone Production Cars FB page