A word from ... Heinz Hollerweger

The managing director of quattro GmbH about the victory of the new Audi R8 LMS in the 24-hour race at the Nürburgring and the successful premiere of the Audi Sport TT Cup. 

The first fielding of the new Audi R8 LMS in the 24-hour race at the Nürburgring resulting in an immediate victory – was this to be expected?

This was probably not to be expected, especially when you hit the track with such a new car. Of course we intensively worked toward this race and every one of us was hoping to win. But it wasn’t something we should have expected.

Impressive for a lot of people was the fact that the new R8 LMS was running without any technical issues whatsoever – that’s something that can’t be taken for granted with a new car, especially not on the Nordschleife.

You’re right, that’s definitely not to be taken for granted. Of course we intensively prepared and did a lot of testing. We also made a few improvements in recent weeks. But with a new car there’s always a certain amount of uncertainty left. So, as far as that’s concerned, we’re happy that the cars ran as reliably as they did. Obviously, we’re now going to take them apart and look at what else we may be able to improve for the next races and particularly before delivering them to our customer teams. 

The victory in the 24-hour race happened right in time for the start of the advance sale of the new production R8.

You couldn’t wish for a car to have a better start. The advance sale began a week ago – and now this victory. That a new race car and the production model are being presented at the same time has never happened before in Audi’s history.

What has been the response by the customer teams to the new R8 LMS?

It’s been very positive even before this weekend. But of course we’re now under pressure to build and sell even more cars due to this victory. But you couldn’t wish for a better type of pressure than this. 

This victory should also be a sweet reward for the squad that worked hard in the past weeks and months.

Yes, absolutely. We really have to thank everyone who helped achieve this. Not only the people who were part of the trackside crew this weekend but also those who ran the preparations and tests behind the scenes and fed the final preparations into the process, especially the teams of Ernst Moser, Phoenix, and Vincent Vosse, WRT. Both of them with their squads gave everything to make this victory possible. 

In parallel with the new Audi R8 LMS, the Audi Sport TT Cup was launched – the new one-make cup saw a successful start as well. 

In motorsport, we’re really enjoying a certain run of success at the moment, but there’s no reason to get carried away. We simply have to keep up our straightforward approach and continue to further develop the Audi Sport TT Cup and the new Audi R8 LMS. In either case, this amounts to hard work.