source: Audi Sport
- Special liveries of the GT3 sports cars: three cars, standing side by side, to sport the “Stars and Stripes” of the American flag
- Championship-winning team from the Pirelli World Challenge to race in GT4 class
Audi will offer fans not just one but several treats at the Intercontinental GT Challenge (IGTC) finale in California from October 26 to 28: Besides the GT3 model, the GT4 version of the Audi R8 LMS and the Audi RS 3 LMS TCR race car will be on the grid at Laguna Seca for the California 8 Hours. In addition, the audience can look forward to a visual surprise: For the first time, the liveries of the three Audi GT3 sports cars will complement each other to create a total picture in the style of the American flag.
In addition to the GT3 sports cars, the GT4 class and the TCR category are enhancing the California 8 Hours this year. Seven marques are represented in the GT4 field for production-based sports cars. The two customer teams GMG Racing and Rearden Racing rely on the Audi R8 LMS GT4. GMG Racing team principal and driver James Sofronas is sharing the cockpit with Jason Bell and Andrew Davis. Sofronas, since August, has won three drivers’ titles plus the teams’ title in the Pirelli World Challenge with the Audi R8 LMS GT4. They marked the first championship wins of Audi Sport customer racing’s most recent race car that subsequently won titles in the European Championship and in France as well. Team Rearden Racing is fielding two of these race cars and has signed the driver pairings of Jeff Kearl/Vesko Kozarov and Jeff Burton/Jessica Burton/James Burke. Finally, Team M1GT Racing is putting an Audi RS 3 LMS for Walt Bowlin/Jerimy Daniel/Lars Viljoen on the grid. The TCR race car won its class in North America in the Pirelli World Challenge in 2017. In 2018, it won the TCR classification in the IMSA Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge.