Strong start to August for the Audi customer teams
- Overall and class victories for the Audi R8 LMS in Australia and Europe
- Club racing successes for Audi R8 LMS GT4 in Eastern Europe
- TCR Australia championship leader relies on Audi RS 3 LMS
The customer teams in numerous countries are preparing for exciting championship decisions in the coming weeks. In Australia and Europe, several Audi Sport customer racing teams got off to a good start into August with victories and further successes. In TCR Australia, the private touring car team Tufflift Racing is at the top of the standings with the Audi RS 3 LMS, while the GT3 sports car continues to be among the front runners there with victories for the Shaw & Partners/Kelso Electrical and Team BRM/ACM Finance teams. Newcomer Petr Fulín recorded his first GT3 victories with Audi in Eastern Europe, while the amateur drivers of équipe vitesse extended their lead in the standings in two categories of the Nürburgring Langstrecken-Serie with a class win.
Audi R8 LMS GT3
Successes in Australia, Eastern Europe and at the Nürburgring: The Audi R8 LMS once again presented itself in top form on the first weekend in August. At the fourth round of the Fanatec GT World Challenge Australia powered by AWS, both victories went to Audi customer teams on the Queensland circuit. In the turbulent first race, Mark Rosser and Alex Peroni from Team BRM/ACM Finance prevailed after Paul Stokell had initially led in another Audi. A total of three safety car phases after spins and accidents repeatedly interrupted the race rhythm. Towards the end, Brendon Leitch led the race in the Dayle ITM/MPC Audi, but a total of ten penalty seconds for two infringements dropped him back to third place after the checkered flag. Rosser and Peroni won for the first time this year. In the second race, Will Brown and Brad Schumacher in the Audi of the Shaw & Partners/Kelso Electrical team pulled away at the end with an eight-second lead at the front. They celebrated their second win of the season, something that no other driver pairing has achieved in the first six races this year. Schumacher and Brown thus remain second in the standings, but reduced their deficit from seven points to just one point behind the leading Ferrari. Second place in the race went to the New Zealand driver duo Brendon Leitch/Tim Miles in the Audi. They remain third in the standings, but moved to within two points of their Audi brand colleagues Brown/Schumacher. In the Central European Eset Cup Series, two Audi R8 LMS cars were on the grid for the first time this year at the fifth round in Most. In the first sprint, Petr Fulín won the GT3 classification on his debut in an Audi R8 LMS ahead of Martin Hudek in a first-generation Audi R8 LMS. In the second sprint, Fulín even achieved overall victory with the Fullin Race Academy team, while second place in the GT3 class again went to Hudek. In the endurance race, Fulín senior left the cockpit to his son Petr Fulín jr. and Jiří Navrátil, who together secured second place in the GT3 category. In the Nürburgring Langstrecken-Serie, équipe vitesse won the SP9 Am class in the fourth race. While changeable weather led to a pile-up shortly after the start and the retirement of many top contenders, Michael Heimrich, Arno Klasen and Lorenzo Rocco kept a cool head in the Audi R8 LMS, changed tires in time before the rain set in and finished fifth overall. As a result, Heimrich and Klasen lead the SP9-Am table. équipe vitesse is also in first place in the Goodyear Wingfoot Award classification, a special classification for the first 20 participants in an advertised class who rely on the corresponding tires.
Audi R8 LMS GT4
Three victories for Seyffarth Motorsport: Rüdiger Seyffarth’s private team contested the fourth round of the P9 Challenge in Most, Czech Republic, with two Audi R8 LMS GT4s. In the first sprint, Sophie Hofmann won her class ahead of Max Zschuppe, and in the second sprint she beat her teammate Oleksandr Kosohov. In the endurance race at the same event, Zschuppe/Kosohov won their class in the Audi. Team Fast Development competed in the fourth round of the South African Endurance Championship with an Audi R8 LMS GT4. Anthony Pretorius/Ryan Naicker finished third in their class after four hours of racing in Kyalami.
Audi RS 3 LMS (TCR)
Lead extended: Audi privateer Zac Soutar increased the gap to his rivals in the fifth of seven rounds of TCR Australia. The Australian traveled to Queensland with a 21-point cushion and is now 27 points ahead of his closest rival at the top of the standings. In the first sprint in Queensland, Soutar finished third in the Tufflift Racing Audi RS 3 LMS. After finishing second in the third sprint, he has secured a promising position in the standings for the two remaining events in Sydney in October and Bathurst in November.
Coming up next week
09–11/08 Hockenheim (D), round 3, GTC Race
09–11/08 Hockenheim (D), round 3, Spezial Tourenwagen Trophy
09–11/08 Sepang (MAL), round 3, Thailand Super Series
09–11/08 Zhejiang (CHN), round 3, TCR China Championship
09–11/08 Zhejiang (CHN), round 3, TCR China Challenge
10/08 Donington (GB), round 5, British Endurance Championship
10–11/08 Motegi (J), round 1, TCR Japan
10–11/08 Trois-Rivières (CDN), round 4, Sports Car Championship Canada presented by Michelin