Audi mourns the death of Ken Block, who passed away on January 2. “We are saddened by this news and extend our deepest condolences to his family and friends,” said Oliver Hoffmann, Member of the Board for Technical Development at AUDI AG. “Ken was a pioneer and in recent years also a member of the Audi family. He was valued and warmly welcomed by all. We have lost a great person and respected sportsman, who will always have his place in the history of Audi Sport.” Ken Block joined the Audi family in 2021. He had most recently caused a stir in the “Electrikhana” video on the streets of Las Vegas in the all-electric Audi S1 Hoonitron developed especially for him and his team.
The 22-year-old GT driver can already look back on numerous successes within the Audi Sport customer racing customer sport program. Now, the Belgian has also demonstrated his skills in virtual racing with the Audi e-tron Vision Gran Turismo and secured the first victory for the WRT Team Audi Sport squad. Vanthoor prevailed against a total of 14 competitors on the Barcelona Grand Prix race track. However, in the all-important showdown between Vanthoor and Audi DTM driver Nico Müller, it was impossible to predict who would win the third round – even in the final few meters before the finish. For spectators, the battle on track between the Belgian and the Swiss resulted in an enthralling final, which Vanthoor finally won with a very narrow lead of just five hundredths of a second. In addition to his first podium finish, Müller also achieved the overall fastest lap time and, together with his teammate Robin Frijns, took the lead in the teams’ classification for Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline. The winner of the next #RaceHome charity racing series round will be determined next Tuesday, May 12. More information at racehome.rcco.ag.
In a brief interview, the German talks about his promotion to the LMP1 class and the challenges at the wheel of the Audi R18 e-tron quattro. Could you have imagined a year ago that you’d be making your debut in the Audi R18 e-tron quattro in 2015? I’d been dreaming about such a cockpit and battling to get it for a long time but only a very small number of race drivers in the world are given this opportunity. Being one of those to have achieved this is a great honor and pleasure for me, particularly as I don’t have a lot of experience yet in sports prototypes and only drove an LMP2 in 2014 on making my debut at Le Mans. However, without this learning curve it would have been impossible to climb into an LMP1. That’s really a major step because the Audi R18 e-tron quattro is arguably the most complex and best race car in existence – a dream car! And what was the response to your promotion? I received a lot of messages and calls. The response was positive across the board. Many people told me that, following my successes, I deserve the place in Audi Sport Team Joest. That was nice to hear. You’ll be complementing the WEC driver squad in the Spa 6 Hours and the Le Mans 24 Hours in the third Audi R18 e-tron quattro. How are the preparations going? I drove the Audi R18 e-tron quattro at the end of 2014. That’s been my only stint in the LMP1 so far but there’s a lot more planned before my first start as an Audi factory driver in the Spa 6 Hours in May. My new team is supporting me superbly and I’m excited about the coming season – especially the Le Mans 24 Hours. I’m not setting myself any unrealistically high goals. Obviously, a place on the podium would be tremendous and should be our aim. You were racing as a GT driver for a whole decade. Is this chapter in your career definitely over now? I’m going to stay in GT racing. We’re still going to define what that will look like in detail.
Audi factory driver André Lotterer and GT Sport driver Laurens Vanthoor visited the 93rd Motor Show in Brussels. Both signed plenty of autographs and subsequently attended the opening gala of the Dream Car exhibition. One of the cars showcased at the exhibition was the Audi R18 e-tron quattro in which Lotterer, together with Marcel Fässler and Benoît Tréluyer, celebrated his third victory in the 24-hour race at Le Mans last year.
On Saturday, Audi Neuburg received internal and external employees and their family members at a Family Day. Audi’s Management Board Member Prof. Dr.-Ing. Ulrich Hackenberg and Head of Audi Motorsport Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich welcomed some 1,500 guests. The new complex with its modern facilities opened its gates to the families for the first time. The visitors had the opportunity to view the fascinating world of Audi Sport with a line-up on display ranging from the race cars used in the WEC, DTM, GT racing and the Audi Sport TT Cup through to components such as the hybrid system of the Le Mans winning Audi R18 e-tron quattro and obtained autographs from the race drivers. In addition, Audi raffled off 30 opportunities for rides in the passenger seat with the Audi driving experience.
The New Zealander was allowed to drive the Audi R18 e-tron quattro in Bahrain on Sunday. “An awesome opportunity that was incredible fun for me,” beamed the up-and-coming driver, who started out in single-seater racing and is now driving a GT sports car in the FIA WEC: “A huge thank you to Audi and to the FIA WEC for this wonderful chance.” Stanaway completed 63 laps at Bahrain International Circuit. Justin Taylor, who is normally responsible for Audi drivers Lucas di Grassi/Loïc Duval/Oliver Jarvis, was assigned as the New Zealander’s engineer in the test. Audi driver Benoît Tréluyer, who had instructed Stanaway in operating the LMP1 race car and had previously been on hand during the seat fitting in Neuburg, supported the test on Sunday as well.
It was not an easy year for Audi Sport. We made a great start to the season and won a number of important races but unfortunately clinched no title in either WEC or DTM, which are our two most important programs. But 2015 has not been a season we need to feel bad about. Quite the contrary is true. Our target is always to be able to win. And that was the case in 2015 in WEC as it was in DTM. The Audi R18 e-tron quattro won the first two WEC rounds at Silverstone and Spa and we only just missed out on victory at Le Mans. The RS 5 DTM scored four consecutive victories at the beginning. This is something special as Audi Sport has moved from Ingolstadt to Neuburg at the end of last season. The logistical efforts were not easy at all and put an additional workload on the entire team. It speaks for Audi Sport that we succeeded in doing all that and in heading well-prepared into the new season. There was a lot of work in the area of customer racing in 2015, too ... Audi Sport customer racing is now based at Neuburg as well. They even moved premises in the course of the season. In this phase, the customer racing colleagues made the new Audi R8 LMS ready for production. And they worked so hard that they clinched the outright win in the fiercely contested Nürburgring 24 Hours first time out. Last but not least, quattro GmbH has also launched the new Audi Sport TT Cup. The new one-make cup was a hit out of the box and I regard it as an asset for the DTM weekends. All people involved can be proud of the result. Audi Sport has been an own brand since this year and markets the R and RS models. Are you proud of this? For us in the motorsport department, this is a strong signal: motorsport is part of Audi’s DNA and is firmly established in the Group. At Audi, the technology transfer between motorsport and road car production has materialized. Audi Sport has been synonymous for Audi’s success in motorsport for more than 35 years.