CARS CARS The Audi R8 LMS won the Italian endurance race overall

With their GT sports cars and touring vehicles, Audi’s customer teams once again won several awards in both overall and class standings in international events during the first half of May. Off-road enthusiasts will receive value for their money in a new documentary on the Dakar Rally.

A triumphant start to the season in Italy: At the Campionato Italiano GT Endurance season opener, two Audi customer teams had every cause to rejoice. After three hours of competition, Team Tresor Attempto Racing, which had begun in pole position, won the Audi R8 LMS at Misano. The Adriatic Coast Circuit’s first of four endurance races was won by Riccardo Cazzaniga, Rocco Mazzola, and Fabio Rauer by a margin of 1.2 seconds. Italian driver Riccardo Cazzaniga took the lead early on, and the Audi came in second when he was replaced by his German colleague Fabio Rauer. Then, like his countryman Cazzaniga in the beginning, Rocco Mazzola snatched the lead and never let it go. Team Haas RT finished third overall. In the team’s Audi R8 LMS, Ramez Azzam, Omar Jackson, and Axcil Jefferies finished 13 spots ahead of 10 other competitors to win the Pro-Am division. Alessandro Bracalente, Andy Cantu, and Nano López were in third and second position in the Pro-Am division until lap 45, when their Audi R8 LMS crashed into the gravel on an unexpected oil patch. Audi Sport Italia also had their sights set on a podium finish. Audi’s client teams won many awards at the second Fanatec GT World Challenge Australia powered by AWS event. On the Sydney circuit, Wolfbrook Team MPC had the best performance. In the Audi R8 LMS’s second race, Ryan Wood/Steve Brooks finished in second position. Broc Feeney/Brad Schumacher from the Kelso Electrical Team MPC trailed them by less than eight seconds. In the rankings, this private driver duo in an Audi R8 LMS is still ranked second. Renee Gracie made a splash in qualifying thanks to her personal best performance to date in the Audi R8 LMS, finishing second overall and, consequently, in the top row of the grid in the first race. In both races, she emerged first in the amateur division, while brothers James and Theo Koundouris finished third and second, respectively. In the second race, another Audi was driven by Matt Stoupas and Gary Higgon, who won the Trophy division. Using the R8 LMS, Audi’s customer teams achieved four class podium finishes in the GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Sprint Cup. Together, the Italian Leonardo Moncini and the Dane Sebastian Øgaard placed third in the Gold Cup for Tresor Attempto Racing in the season opener at Brands Hatch, which consisted of two one-hour sprint races. The Silver Cup’s second race was very thrilling; after 37 laps, their colleagues Alex Aka and Ezequiel Perez Companc finished in second position, only 0.676 seconds from winning the class. Third place went to Lorens Lecertua/Ivan Klymenko, who were about 1.1 seconds behind in the Saintéloc Racing Audi. Additionally, Audi’s clients brought back prizes from the second GT World Challenge Asia event, which was powered by AWS. In the inaugural race at Mandalika, Indonesia, Cheng Congfu/Yu Kuai and the FAW Audi Sport Asia Team Phantom finished third in the Silver category. Because of Cheng Congfu’s excellent qualifying performance, they had begun from pole position. However, during two full-course yellow phases of the race, their Audi R8 LMS was forced to make tactical concessions. Following their prior success, the restrictions also imposed a five-second longer pit stop time, which they had to observe. Compared to where they started, they moved up twelve spots in the race. In Hockenheim, the new season of the Spezial Tourenwagen Trophy got underway.

In the first race, Team Up2Race’s Audi R8 LMS, piloted by Pierre Lemmerz and Alexander Kroker, came in third. After an exciting final phase, they were only 23 hundredths of a second away from second place. Lemmerz/Kroker finished third in the second race, while Stefan Wieninger, driving an Audi R8 LMS from Land-Motorsport, was the top Audi privateer driver in second position. At the third round of the Nürburgring Langstrecken-Series, Team Équipe Velocity emerged victorious in the SP9 Am class. At the end, Michael Heimrich, Arno Klasen, and Eric Ullström in their Audi R8 LMS were two laps ahead of their Lamborghini rivals.