The second round of the French GT Tour Series will be in Belgium, at Spa-Francorchamps. Belgian Audi Club Team WRT is planning to join the event with two Audi R8 LMS ultra.
WRT is no stranger to the French series, they managed the official Team Audi France entry for the last couple of years, with Stéphane Ortelli and David Hallyday as their drivers. In 2011 Team Audi France and WRT come very close to the title. Last season, at the finale of Paul Ricard, WRT entered a car on their own under the Belgian Audi Club banner.
Vincent Vosse, WRT team manager, spoke with our friends at Endurance-Info and said that racing at Spa will help the team prepare for the big Spa 24 Hours.
For now nothing is official yet, as the drivers line-ups are still to be announced, but it will be great to see the Belgian Audi team racing on home soil.
Great fictional Audi S4 for the popular V8 Supercars. The car is with Team BOC livery and driven by Jason Bright. Not a real one, but it would be great for sure to see Audi cars joining the most popular touring car racing down under.
Team Novadriver had another strong weekend with their Audi R8 LMS ultra. The Portuguese Audi Sport customer racing team took part in the season opener of the brand new Supercars International Series, which included the Supercars Portugal Series (former Portuguese GT Championship), at Motorland Aragon in Spain.
Two Audi R8 LMS ultra cars entered the Spanish meeting. The #1 car of Cesar Campaniço, Carlos Viera and Mikko Eskelinen, they started from pole position. The sister #10 car shared by João Ramos, João Pedro Figueiredo and Antti Buri started from eighth place.
On race day the #1 Audi battled hard with the AF Corse Ferrari 458. After a two-hour 57-lap race the #1 R8 LMS ultra finished second behind the winning car from the Italian team. However by finishing second overall, Campaniço, Viera and Eskelinen, were victorious in the Supercars Portugal Series. Unfortunately the sister #10 R8 LMS ultra retired from the race after 17 laps.
The next stop for the Supercars Portugal Series will be at Estoril.
Focussing this week on the weekend of 27 - 28 April 2013
2. The Events
VLN
ADAC GT Masters
Portuguese GT / Supercars Series
GT-Tour
Super GT
HSR
Cup & Tourenwagen Trophy
European Hillclimb Championship
Manx Classic
2.1. VLN
Round three of the VLN took place in chaotic conditions. The race got underway in torrential rain and cold temperatures, and finished on a drying track with the competitors on slicks. Victory went to the #5 Phoenix Racing Audi R8 LMS ultra which was driven by Marcel Fässler and Frank Stippler. A total of seven Audi R8 LMS ultra cars took part in round three. Behind the top SP9 class (R8 LMS ultra cars) there was further Audi success with Audi TT RS cars winning the SP3T and SP4T classes.
Oschersleben hosted the first round of the ADAC GT Masters this weekend. Six Audi R8 LMS ultra cars, all in 2013 specification, have been entered this year. Three cars from Prosperia C.ABT Racing, two from MS Racing and one from YACO Racing. The Audi cars suffered during qualifying, but during the wet first race the #27 of Rast / Mies was able to come through and win the first race of the season. Four Audis finished within the top ten in race one. The second race took place in dry conditions and the top placed, and only Audi in the top ten, finished in sixth place.
The Portuguese GT Championship, now known as the Supercars Portugal Series, took place alongside the Supercars International Series this weekend. The event took place at Aragon in Spain. One Audi R8 LMS team has entered the series for 2013, Team Nova Driver, who are once again fielding a two car effort. Both of the team’s cars are in the 2013 Audi R8 LMS ultra specification. The team qualified on the overall pole and finished the race second overall, and first in the Portuguese GT standings. The second Nova car unfortunately retired from the race.
The French GT-Tour got underway at Le Mans this weekend. The series competed on the permanent Bugatti circuit. Four Audi R8 LMS ultra cars (all in 2013 specification) took part, three from Saintéloc and one from Team Speed Car. The cars performed well with a fourth in the first race and seventh in the second race. The top placed Audi in both races was the #42 of David Halliday and Gregory Guilvert.
Round two of Japanese Super GT Championship took place at the Fuji Speedway. The two regular Audi R8 LMS ultra teams took part. Hitotsuyama Racing with a 2013 R8 LMS ultra and äpr racing with a 2012 R8 LMS ultra. Both teams qualified outside of the top ten for the race held on the Monday following the weekend.
The Historic Sportscar Racing (HSR) series hosted the annual Mitty at Road Atlanta. The Mitty is an annual historic sportscar racing event. One Audi R8 LMP was entered, the Audi R8 (#606) of Travis Engen.
The Cup & Tourenwagen Trophy is a German series which featured a number of Audi race cars last year. The first round took place at Hochenheim. One Audi was entered, the Audi TT driven by Franz-Josef Fischer.
The Rechberg Hillclimb was held in Austria, a round of the FIA European Hillclimb Championship. A number of Audi cars took part, including most notably the Audi A4 STW of Andreas Marko and the newly modified ABT-Audi TT-R of Vláďa Vitver.
An Audi R18 e-tron quattro display car was present in Belgium this week. A pre-event press conference was held in the centre of Liege. A Toyota TS030 display car was also part of the display, alongside the Audi. Loïc Duval also attended the press conference which was aimed at promoting the Six Hours of Spa, round two of the FIA WEC which is taking place in May.
The Nürburgring 24 Hours entry list was released this week. The current list includes nineteen Audis, eight of which are Audi R8 LMS ultra cars. More can be read HERE. The entry list can be seen HERE.
The Nürburgring 24 Hours press conference was held this week. Two Audi R8 LMS ultra cars were present at the conference. Nineteen Audis will take part in the event spearheaded by the reigning champions, Phoenix Racing.
During Sunday afternoon the official Audi Sport Facebook page launched an online competition. Fans are encouraged to prove that they are “Audi Motorsport’s biggest fan” by submitting their best photos from the 2012 season. The winners stand a chance to win various Audi Sport merchandise.
At the 2012 Audi Sport year end function (Audi Sport Finale), it was announced that Dindo Capello would receive the 2012 Sebring 12 Hours winning Audi R18 TDI. The car would be supplied to be on display at Capello’s Italian Audi dealership. The R18 was delivered this week.
Audi Sport Italia will return to the Italian GT Championship. The team will be fielding two 2013 Audi R8 LMS ultra cars (car pictured is in 2012 specification). The new livery and driver line-up was revealed this week. The two-car team will consist of Dindo Capello / Andrea Sonvico and Johan Kirstoffersson / Alex Frassineti.
Istook Motorsport has revealed their livery and sponsors this week. The team is working on preparing their two TT RS race cars for their first entry in the 2013 SCCA World Challenge.
The new Iron Man 3 Movie, which features Audi cars, will be promoted in the DTM. The Audi RS 5 DTM of Adrien Tambay will compete with an Iron Man 3 livery at Hockenheim next weekend.
An Audi won the first race of the 2013 ADAC GT Masters at Oscherslben yesterday, with René Rast and Christopher Mies in the wet. Race 2 today was a little bit harder for the Audi R8 LMS ultra cars.
The best ranked Audi R8 LMS ultra finished in sixth place, the #28 Prosperia C.Abt Racing car shared by drivers Christer Jons and Christian Mamerow. The two drivers started from third on the gird and were not able to fight for the race win.
All the other Audi R8 LMS ultra cars were outside of the top 10. Rahel Frey and Markus Winckelhock, with #26 Prosperia C.Abt Racing, were eleventh. The defending champions from MS Racing were only able to finish in twelfth and seventeenth places with their #1 and #100 Audis. The YACO Racing #16 car was twentieth. Bad luck for race 1 winners René Rast and Christopher Mies, they were classified twenty-fourth with #27 R8 LMS ultra.
The next stop for the ADAC GT Masters is set in two weeks time in Belgium, at Spa-Francorchamps.
Round 3 of the VLN Endurance Series was held yesterday, the ADAC ACAS H&R-Cup 4-hour race. Very hard conditions on track, with extreme cold weather and heavy rain. Audi was victorious in the end with the #5 Phoenix Racing Audi R8 LMS ultra, driven by Marcel Fässler and Frank Stippler.
A full field of GT3 cars (SP9) entered the event, the final VLN race before the demanding Nürburgring 24 Hours. Seven Audi R8 LMS ultra cars too part. Fässler and Stippler crossed the finish line victorious with a minute gap ahead of the second placed BMW Z4 GT3 from BMW Team Schubert, third was the Timbuli Racing Porsche 997 GT3 R.
The other Audi R8 LMS ultra finished in ninth with #37 G-Drive Racing by Phoenix (Frank Biela/Roman Rusinov/Luca Ludwig), fifteenth with #44 Twin Busch Motorsport (Dennis Busch/Marc Busch), sixteenth with #15 Phoenix Racing (Johannes Stuck/Ferdinand Stuck/Michael Ammermüller, twenty-second with #11 Audi race experience (Florian Gruber/Ronnie Saurenmann), twenty-ninth with #22 Audi race experience (Marco Werner/Christian Bollrath/Dominique Bastien) and forty-sixth with #45 Belgian Audi Club Team WRT (Laurens Vanthoor/Edward Sandström/Christopher Haase).
In addition to the outright win, the Audi TT RS cars did well in the other classes. In SP4T it was the #249 Audi TT RS of team MSC Adenau e.V. im ADAC who took the class honors. In SP3T the #331 Audi TT RS of Raeder Motorsport was first. A positive second appearance for the privately built #130 Audi RS 5 GT from Dupré Motorsport, the car finished fourth in the SP8 class.
Rob Austin Racing, the only Audi team in Biritish Touring Car Championship, faced a very hard Donington Park round last time out, with disappointing results in the end. Both WIX Racing backed Audi A4 NGTC cars lacked top speed compared to rivals cars from Honda, MG, BMW and Toyota.
As seen at Brands Hatch, and even at Donington Park, the Audi A4 is very good in handling and cornering, one of the best chassis on the grid. The next round of the series will be at Thruxton, clearly the fastest circuit of the BTCC calendar. Rob Austin Racing recently went to Silverstone to test the Audi car, whilst preparing for that demanding - and penalizing - event. The team focused on gaining extra power to be more competitive in a straight line.
Team owner Rob Austin talked to btcc.net about these tests: "It was a reasonably productive day. We were working on our ducting to try and reduce charger temperatures as well as develop our set up for the unique long fast corners of Thruxton. Field Motorsport are also working tirelessly to give us some more power and bridge the power gap to the other teams." (Quote sourced from btcc.net)
Will Bratt: "We made some good progress with the turbo cooling and handling, and we’ve got some engine work planned between now and the next race. Hopefully they will find us some extra speed, as Thruxton will really show up any disparity in power against the other drivers." (Quote sourced from btcc.net)
