By Johan Laubscher The seventh new Audi R18 e-tron quattro video from Audi's series of launch videos was released today. Audi has been releasing daily pre-launch Audi R18 e-tron quattro videos since Friday last week. Their final video was published today, following the car's world premiere last night. All of the videos have had a similar theme with glimpses of the car surrounded by formulas. The final video includes parts of the first six pre-launch videos, which were titled as: “Speed”, “Performance”, “Kinetic Energy”, "Power" , “Electric Capacity" and "Illumination." This final video, titled as "Success," has been embedded below:
The works Audi GT driver will be competing at the demanding Mount Panorama endurance event for the first time. Laurens Vanthoor had an impressive 2013 season with Belgian Audi Club Team WRT in both the FIA GT Series and the Blancpain Endurance Series. Vanthoor won the FIA GT Series title with his teammate, Stéphane Ortelli.
Phoenix Racing will be among the big favourites for the overall win Down Under in February. The names of Laurens Vanthoor's Phoenix Racing teammates for Bathurst will be announced later.
Taiwan will be hosting the TSF Asia All Star Challenge at the Penbay International Circuit this coming weekend. A four-car team of Audis will be taking part.
The event will be a big final Asian motorsport meeting and many teams from across Asia have entered the event, including Absolute Racing with a number of Audis.
A total of four Audis will be entered by Absolute Racing under the J-Fly Racing banner, three Audi R8 LMS cars and one Audi R8 LMS ultra. They will be competing in the GT Master Cup races, which includes the GT3 and GTM classes.
The three older R8 LMS cars will be in the GTM class. The first car will be driven by the 2013 Audi R8 LMS Cup champion, Adderly Fong. The second car will have Keith Chen and Hiroki Yoshimoto behind the wheel. The final GTM Audi entry will be driven by Carlo Van Dam and Benjamin Lee.
J-Fly Racing’s Audi R8 LMS ultra entry will be competing in the GT3 class. The car has been entered with regular GT Asia driver, Jeffrey Lee. He will be racing alongside Rahel Frey, his teammate and co-driver for the weekend. The factory Audi driver will be a force to be reckoned with alongside Jeffrey Lee, with the pair aiming for overall victory as the strongest Audi entry.
The weekend kicks off with scrutineering on Thursday, followed by two GT Master Cup practice sessions on Friday. Saturday will have a short warm up session and the two qualifying sessions. Sunday will see another short warm up session and then the fifty minute GT Master Cup race. The final race on Sunday will be a ten lap sprint race called the "2013 Asia GT Master."
We wish the best of luck to J-Fly Racing (Absolute Racing) and their drivers. Hopefully Absolute Racing can add even more success to their already very successful 2013 motorsport season.
The Audi Sport Finale was held at Audi Forum Ingolstadt on Wednesday. It was a very exciting yearend function for Audi Sport, which saw a number of presentations, including recognising the Audi Sport customer racing teams and drivers who celebrated success during 2013.
Audi Sport’s official twitter feed (@Audi__Sport on twitter) provided excellent real-time coverage of the event for their fans around the world. Below we have included a rundown of the Audi Sport customer racing presentation from the Audi Sport Finale, as per the updates from the official Audi Sport twitter feed. Audi Sport Italia - International and Italian Superstars champions with the Audi RS 5 quattro Driver: Gianni Morbidelli
JB Motorsport - Swedish GT Series champion Driver: Jan Brunstedt
MTM Motorsport - Superstars GT Sprint champion
Driver: Thomas Schöffler
Team Novadriver - Portuguese GT Championship champions
Drivers: César Campanico and Mikko Eskelinen
PK Carsport - Belgian Racing Car Championship Endurance champions
Drivers: Bert Longin, Maarten Makelberge and Anthony Kumpen (not present)
Belgian Audi Club Team WRT - Fia GT Series champions
Drivers: Stéphane Ortelli and Laurens Vanthoor
Adderly Fong - 2013 Audi R8 LMS Cup champion
Edoardo Mortara - Macau GT Cup winner
Alex Job Racing - Daytona 24 Hours winners
Drivers: Filipe Albuquerque, Oliver Jarvis, Edoardo Mortara, Dion von Moltke
It was certainly a great year for Audi Sport customer racing and the Audi R8 LMS / ultra and GRAND-AM cars, with multiple titles and race victories. 2014 will be another tremendous year for Audi Sport customer racing.
Development Board Member Dr. Hackenberg: “Motorsport accelerates our developments”
Ingolstadt, December 18, 2013 – At the world premiere of the new Audi R18 e-tron quattro, Audi unveiled another technical highlight of its new LMP1 sports car in Ingolstadt on Wednesday night. In 2014, the brand with the four rings will be running with laser light for the first time in the Le Mans 24 Hours and in the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC).
“By using this new lighting technology Audi is setting yet another milestone at Le Mans,” said Dr. Ulrich Hackenberg, Member of the Management Board for Technical Development of AUDI AG, at the official presentation of the new R18 e-tron quattro that took place as part of the ‘Audi Sport Finale.’ Laser light will also open up completely new possibilities for our production models in the future. Once more, motorsport at Audi accelerates a new technical development for our customers.”
The innovative laser light, which about 500 guests in attendance at the ‘Audi Sport Finale’ had the chance to experience live for the first time, complements the main LED headlights of the new Audi R18 e-tron quattro. A blue laser beam backlights a yellow phosphorus crystal lens through which the light beam is then emitted. This new light source provides even more homogenous lighting of the road.
Laser light just one of numerous innovations of the new R18
“The new laser light is just one of numerous technical innovations featured by our new R18,” said Head of Audi Motorsport Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich, who was recognized by Dr. Ulrich Hackenberg on Wednesday night on the occasion of his 20th anniversary at the helm of Audi Sport. “We’re not going to reveal any more than that at this early stage, as in 2014 we’re facing an extremely tough competition and a year full of challenges for Audi Sport.”
As before, the motorsport commitment of AUDI AG in the new season will continue to consist of the three pillars Le Mans prototypes (LMP1), DTM and GT sport. In addition, Audi Sport is preparing for its move into the new Motorsport Competence Center in Neuburg in the summer of 2014. “This is a very important step to ensure that Audi will retain its ability to be successfully active in motorsport at the highest level but, obviously, it also puts an additional strain on our squad,” said Dr. Ullrich. Three Audi R18 e-tron quattro cars in Le Mans 24 Hours
The FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) will see Audi Sport Team Joest compete as the title defender in the 2014 season. In all eight races of the 2014 WEC, the World Champions will be running with two Audi R18 e-tron quattro cars. For the season’s pinnacle event at Le Mans on June 14/15, 2014, the fielding of a third R18 is planned. The driver teams will be announced at a later date.
New version of the Championship-winning Audi RS 5 DTM
In the DTM, Audi will continue the successful long-standing partnership with the Audi Sport Teams Abt Sportsline, Phoenix and Rosberg. For the 2014 season, a new version of the Audi RS 5 DTM that was victorious in the DTM in the past season is in the making at Audi Sport. Mike Rockenfeller, as the title defender, in car number ‘1,’ will definitely be driving one of the eight RS 5 DTM cars to be fielded in total. Assignments for the other cockpits and the distribution to the three teams have not been finalized yet.
In GT sport, Audi Sport customer racing will again be providing particularly intensive support to its customer teams for the 24-hour races at Daytona (USA), the Nürburgring (Germany) and Spa-Francorchamps (Belgium).
GTD version of the Audi R8 LMS for U.S. racing
Following the merger of the GRAND-AM and the American Le Mans Series into the Tudor United SportsCar Championship (TUSCC), a new chapter will begin in U.S. racing. Based on the previous race car for the USA, Audi has developed a GTD version of the R8 LMS, with GTD standing for ‘GT Daytona.’ The GTD version now only differs from the GT3 model in few details.
The Audi R8 LMS Cup in its third season is taking the next step in its internationalization effort in the Asian region. In 2014, aside from three races in China – among others, held in conjunction with the WEC at Shanghai and the DTM at Guangzhou – the world’s first one-make cup of AUDI AG will take place in Malaysia, in South Korea and, for the first time, in Japan. Following the fielding of 16 race cars in the inaugural season and 20 last year, Audi China is planning to put up to 24 Audi R8 LMS cars on the grid.
The extensive motorsport commitment of AUDI AG is complemented by the offer of the Audi race experience, which gives customers with sporting ambitions the opportunity to personally drive the Audi R8 LMS ultra. In addition to individual training sessions, the Audi race experience offers racing commitments in the VLN Endurance Championship and in the 24-hour race at the Nürburgring. The three-time Le Mans winner Marco Werner, the former DTM race driver Rahel Frey and the former 24-hour Nürburgring winner Markus Winkelhock will be passing on their knowledge as instructors.
Münnich Motorsport has completed their final testing outing for 2013. The last test of the year was held at Lohéac in France.
The team is currently busy preparing for the 2014 FIA World Rallycross Championship. Their first Audi S3/A3 Supercar class rallycross vehicle has been taking part in various test sessions recently. They are also busy building a second primary Audi S3/A3 rallycross car, which will be their competition vehicle next year.
It remains very exciting to see this new rallycross car from Münnich Motorsport continuing its development. We have embedded their latest testing video below.
More information and videos of the car can be seen HERE.
By Johan Laubscher The sixth and final Audi R18 e-tron quattro pre-launch video was released today. Audi has released daily videos previewing the new Audi R18 e-tron quattro. They started with the first video on Friday, followed by one video a day since then until today, 18 December, the day of the car's world premiere. Each video had a similar look with brief glimpses of the car surrounded with formulas and a unique title. The sixth and final video was released today, ahead of the world premiere tonight. This latest video, titled as "Illumination", follows on from the first five videos: “Speed”, “Performance”, “Kinetic Energy”, "Power" and “Electric Capacity."
The new video has been embedded below. The Audi Sport Finale, the year end function, will be taking place tonight, along with the world premiere of the new Audi R18 e-tron quattro. The Audi Sport Finale will begin at 19:00 CET and the presentation of the new Audi R18 e-tron quattro will begin at about 20:30 CET.
