With the delivery of the first racing cars to the customers, the GT3 customer sport project promoted by Audi AG has now achieved the next stage. Until mid April, 20 units of the Audi R8 LMW will be delivered to the teams to compete in various national and international racing series of the season 2010 with the GT3 racing car, including the VLN endurance racing championship Nürburgring.
Four teams will start in the unique race series at the Nordschleife with the GT3 racer from Ingolstadt. Whilst the champion team Black-Falcon as well as the team Phoenix-Racing will participate in all of the ten races, the team Abt-Sportline from Kempten will enrich the championship races occasionally. The Audi race experience Team Joest will join the series on 24th April.
In order to be able to offer a race car as perfect as possible, Audi Sport has used the possibilities in the GT3 Regulations and will homologate with the World Motor Sport Federation FIA an evolution version of the R8 LMS which will feature many technical improvements compared to last year’s model. The previous vehicles will be updated with a kit and may thus further compete.
”In the further development, we have mainly concentrated on the reliability and the ease of maintenance”, explains Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich, Head of Audi Motorsport. “All of the experience which we have gained last season with the support of our partners has been incorporated in the evolution version. We are convinced that we will provide our customers a reliable racing car with an easy handling and which meets the high quality standards of the make Audi.”
Both chassis and suspension were revised in detail. The performance of the engine cooling was further improved so that the R8 LMS can be raced without any problems even at extreme outside temperatures. The complex electronic unit was further adapted to the racing conditions. The newly developed six gear racing gearbox is particularly easy to service. Wearing parts can be inspected through an opening in the housing and it is hence not required to remove the gearbox.
The evolution version of the Audi R8 LMS has been extensively tested on various circuits and test benches during the last months and its reliability was confirmed at several endurance tests.
