LMS Engineering, the VLN champion team in the year 2012, has bought the last available Audi TTRS chassis and will now rely on two race vehicles for the VLN season 2014, both of which were given the name ‘LMS-Audi TTRS2’. With a new engine, which specifically developed by the team around Andreas Lautner for this purpose, the two cars will again compete in the highly competitive class SP3T open for turbo cars with 2 litres engines. “During the past year, we have developed a two litres, five cylinder engine up onto a highly competitive level”, informs the former Volkswagen Motorsport Technical Director. “The success was overwhelming as Christian Krognes and Ulli Andree, our champion drivers from 2012 and together with Constantin Kletzer, were able to win both test races during the VLN in racing competitions on an extremely high level.
In 2014, the ultra-fast Christian Krognes from Norway will again drive one of the LMS-Audi TTRS2. He will share the cockpit with Georg Niederberger and Stefan Wieninger, this year joining the team. “In the VLN 2013, they both were competing in our champion Scirocco GT24 which our team was also looking after on-site at the races”, explains Lautner. “They showed a really good performance in the car which is not easy to drive and so it was obvious to form a team with them.”
Another member of the team will again be the experienced driver Ulli Andree. The driver from Cologne will not be able to complete a full season due to professional obligations, just as Wieninger, and he will thus compete in the TTRS2 in rotation with the Bavarian race driver from the city of Teisendorf. Whilst Wieninger will join the VLN at the fourth round, the title holder of the year 2012, Andree, will take part in the first three races and in the 6 Hour Race as fourth driver.
Daniela Schmid will make her comeback in the Audi TTRS in the 2014 season. The fast lady driver from Austria had last year been competing in the OPC Cup and also collected first experience in a GT3 race car. She will be supported in her LMS-Audi by “C. Tiger”, driving under a pseudonym, and being a VLN driver from Atlanta, USA, also experienced in driving a TTRS. They both are as new in the team, as is their team mate Roland Botor from Mönchengladbach/ Germany. “Roland has shown excellent performances in the VLN in a Renault Clio and he will for sure be familiar with our TTRS2 very quickly”, says LMS team manager Lautner.
Botor and his team mates will have a first opportunity to demonstrate that they will meet the expectations placed in them on 13th and 14th March in Mugello, Italy. Before the 12 Hour Race taking place there, LMS Engineering will proceed to some tyre tests with their regular partner Dunlop and develop a basic setup with suspension specialist Eibach. The results achieved in the Tuscany will then be verified and completed at test sessions at the Nordschleife before the season starts.
The specification of the independently developed five cylinder engine has also been modified: „CP autosport will provide an air restrictor which was optimized in terms of installation position and which we will have to use as our application for a classification as close-to-production engine has not been granted by the ADAC scrutineers already at the beginning of last year”, explains Andreas Lautner. “Unfortunately, we are hence the only team which has to drive the Audi TTRS in class SP3T with a restrictor and with limited boost pressure. Even though we have won both test races in 2013, the excellent driving performances of Korgnes, Andree and Kletzer, the changing weather conditions as well as technical problems in the race were definitely playing into our hands. In fact, we were competing with a clearly flatter rear wing in order to keep up with the top speed. In terms of power, we had not been up to the level of a four cylinder TTRS.”
LMS Engineering will intensively work on the mapping and the air restrictor position during the season in order to have an performance equal to their competitors at the 24 Hour Race Nürburgring at the latest. The team which is based in the Westerwald region plans to enter at least one of the two LMS-Audi TTRS2 for this highlight of the season.
