Audi Motorsport Newsletter 17/2015

Two wins for Audi in Australia

Audi customer teams claimed both the overall victory as well as victory in the Trophy classification at the second Australian GT Championship race weekend. Almost one week after winning the 24-hour race at the Nürburgring, Christopher Mies had yet another reason to celebrate together with local matador Greg Crick: their Audi R8 LMS ultra fielded by Jamec PEM Racing crossed the finish line in the ‘Phillip Island 101’ with a one second advantage after 88 laps. Smiles all round for Greg Taylor and Barton Mawer, who won the Trophy classification in Wall Racing’s Audi R8 LMS.

Two podiums for Belgian Audi Club Team WRT

The Belgian Audi Club Team WRT enjoyed a successful weekend in the Blancpain Endurance Series: in the second event of the season at Silverstone, the drivers of two R8 LMS ultra fielded by the Belgian racing team mounted the podium. Jean-Karl Vernay, Robin Frijns and Laurens Vanthoor started the 3-hour race from third place and finished in second. The WRT Audi of Frank Stippler, Stéphane Richelmi and Stéphane Ortelli made up five places and took third on the podium. Another Audi R8 LMS ultra in the hands of Filip Salaquarda, Marco Bonanomi and Frederic Vervisch (I.S.R. Racing) came home in fourth place.

Audi driver Phil Burgan scores podium hat trick

Podiums all-round for Phil Burgan in the GT Cup Championship: the Briton finished third in class in all three races at Rockingham. The third race weekend of the season could not have got off to a worse start for Burgan. Due to electronic problems on his Audi R8 LMS ultra from United Autosports, he missed first qualifying and had to start from the back of the grid. Thanks to an impressive comeback driver, he managed to battle through the field to take third place in class and, in doing so, laid the foundation for two further top three results.

Ekström storms onto podium in England

Mattias Ekström celebrated his first podium finish of the season in the FIA World Rallycross Championship. In the fourth round of the World Championship at Lydden Hill (England), the Swede took second place in an Audi S1 EKS RX quattro fielded by his private team EKS. Ekström was only beaten by World Champion Petter Solberg in a nail-biting finale. The Swede was only 0.341 seconds behind the Norwegian at the checkered flag.

Watch experts of Oris pick up speed with Audi driving experience

Audi partner Oris has chosen a motorsport related venue for its first national sales staff training. The Swiss watchmaker invited 60 dealers to the new driving experience center in Neuburg, near the Danube river. Vice president of Oris, Rolf Studer, presented the partnership between Audi Sport and Oris, but it was not only theory, as the participants also went out on track. Together with Nico Müller, the newly crowned winner of the 24-hour race at the Nürburgring, as well as the GT driver Rahel Frey, and the three-time Le Mans winner Marco Werner, the watch experts collected practical driving experience on the various tracks at the facility.

Timo Scheider visits Audi Shop in Berlin

Timo Scheider advertised for the DTM race at the Lausitzring this coming weekend by appearing at the Audi Shop in the 'Bikini Berlin' shopping center. The Audi Sport Team Phoenix driver busily signed autographs and revealed background information to visitors about the DTM and his AUTO TEST Audi RS 5 DTM during a round of interviews. Tickets for the DTM race at the Lausitzring are available at www.audi-motorsport.com.

Dindo Capello is coveted guest in Italy

The triple Le Mans winner and current Audi dealer Dindo Capello was a popular guest in May. Only last week he participated in two events. On Thursday, he was in Asti to visit a tribute for the motorsport physician Dr. Claudio Costa. The physician has redefined treatment standards in motorbike racing with his ‘Clinica mobile’. Former Motorbike World Champion Loris Capirossi and Motorbike Grand Prix winner Virginio Ferrari also enjoyed the evening with Dr. Costa. In Bologna, Capello displayed an Audi R18 TDI at an insurer’s event where he met former Joest driver Mario Casoni. As former professional racing driver for Audi, Capello won the Sebring 12 Hour race with this Audi R18 TDI LMP racecar in 2012.

A word from ... Nico Müller

Congratulations on winning the 24-hour race at the Nürburgring and for your new hairstyle. Who had the idea of shaving off your hair if you win?

My team-mate Christopher Mies came up with this mad idea. The strange thing is that he resisted the most in the end. But we all had to go through with it. And I can tell you one thing: I’m not really happy with the result on my head, but I am very pleased with our result on the race track.

After your VLN win in April, it was your second victory as an Audi factory driver and certainly a special one ...

Absolutely. The 24-hour race at the Nürburgring is one of the world’s most important motorsport events. To win here is a milestone. For Christopher, Edward (Sandström), Laurens (Vanthoor) and me to win with a new car to boot, makes our success even more valuable.

So, the win came rather unexpectedly?

I wouldn’t say that. After we won at the Nordschleife, the third race of the new Audi R8 LMS, we knew that we would start the race with a very fast, easily drivable and reliable car. The driver line-up was also very good, thus we targeted a podium finish right from the start.

When did you raise your expectations from a podium to winning?

You can never be really sure until the checkered falls in such an extremely challenging race. Too much can happen. However, after the first two hours, which went exceptionally well for us, we said we can do this. We took the lead for the first time during my double stint in the night ...

... and afterwards you staged an exciting battle with your pursuers.

It was really like a sprint race. Incredibly intensive. It was not just the cars behind that were of concern. The track was sometimes very slippery. Because of the rain, but more specifically because of the many ailing cars that spread oil and other fluids over the track. I had a scary moment in my second double stint in the morning when I spun on the slippery track. It was a perfect 360-degree pirouette without damage. It looked like Lady Luck was smiling on us.

DTM, WEC, VLN, 24-hour races – Audi drives from win to win. The atmosphere at Audi Sport could hardly be any better, don’t you think?

Obviously, we are all delighted about the success, which shows that many very good decisions were taken over the last few months. However, we also know that it is just a snapshot of time. Without doubt a very impressive one, but the tide can turn very quickly. I’m intrigued to see how the DTM race goes at the Lausitzring. We have to race with a lot of ballast after the two wins in the season opener at Hockenheim, BMW in contrast can remove ballast and Mercedes is historically very strong there. In addition, the Lausitzring is a very special race track, which unfortunately I don’t know as well as many of my rivals. We’ll see how things pan out there. Whatever happens, I’m looking forward to getting back into my Audi RS 5 DTM.

Coming up next week

27/05 Marcel Fässler turns 39 years of age
29-30/05 Zandvoort (NL), 24H Series, round 3
29-31/05 Detroit (USA), Pirelli World Challenge, rounds 10 and 11
30/05 Detroit (USA), Tudor United SportsCar Championship, round 4
30-31/05 Lausitzring (D), DTM, rounds 3 and 4
30-31/05 Monza (I), Italian GT Championship, rounds 3 and 4
31/05 Aragon (E), V de V Endurance Series, round 3
31/05 Le Mans (F), test day

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