Strong Weekend for the Audi RS 3 LMS

Audi RS 3 LMS (TCR)

A victorious start in Canada: The teams got off to a late start in the new season of Sports Car Challenge Canada presented by Michelin. After a heavy storm had prevented the regular season from starting two weeks ago, the first two 40-minute races of the year were held at Calabogie, 100 kilometers west of Ottawa. Audi customers dominated the event. Already in qualifying, five Audi RS 3 LMS led the TCR field of ten competitors. The same picture emerged in the first race: Jerimy Daniel won for TRC Motorsport from pole position with a 24-second advantage over teammate Jean-François Hevey. He was followed by TWOth Autosport’s Ron Tomlinson, Blanchet Motorsports’ Richard Boake and Team GameLancer’s Justin di Benedetto. In race two, Hevey overtook teammate Daniel on the final lap to win the TCR standings by 0.827 seconds. Third place went to Boake, followed by Tomlinson, di Benedetto as well as Ed Killeen in a sixth Audi. Daniel and Hevey are now tied at the top of the standings with 75 points each. Boake and di Benedetto are tied for the next position with 21 points.

Successful start to the new year: Audi Sport customer racing has never been so strongly represented in TCR Scandinavia as in the 2022 season. Eight of the 15 contenders relied on the Audi RS 3 LMS in the season opener. On the Ljungbyhed circuit in the very south of Sweden, long-time Audi customer Tobias Brink made a good start from position three. In his new Audi RS 3 LMS, the Swede from Team Brink Motorsport overtook his rival Oliver Söderström who, with Team Lestrup Racing, also relies on the second generation of Audi’s TCR touring car. After 18 laps, Brink crossed the finish line in second place half a second ahead of Söderström, followed by Hugo Nerman and Andreas Bäckman in two other Audi RS 3 LMS gen II cars. While Tobias Brink is second in the drivers standings, Brink Motorsport is tied at the top of the team standings with the Cupra Dealer Team. In the Junior classification, Audi driver Söderström leads ahead of brand colleague Nerman.

Audi R8 LMS GT3

Leading the standings at the Nürburgring: After Audi won the Nürburgring 24 Hours for the sixth time, the brand also moved to the top of the manufacturers standings. This classification includes the results of the contenders in the SP9, SPX and SP-Pro classes from the rounds of the Nürburgring Langstrecken-Serie, the qualifiers and the 24-hour race. After four rounds, Audi leads with 103 points, followed by Porsche (100 points), Mercedes-AMG and BMW (98 points each), Lamborghini (58 points) and four other manufacturers.

Three victories in Norway: At the second round of the Norwegian Racing SM series, Wiggo Dalmo was once again unbeatable. As at the season opener, the Norwegian Audi customer won his class in all three races, this time on the Sokndal circuit 100 kilometers south of the port city of Stavanger. This puts Dalmo 39 points ahead of Dodge Viper driver Jarl Nilsen in his class after the first third of the season.

Audi R8 LMS GT4

Podium on 24-hour race debut: For the first time, long-time Audi customer team Hitotsuyama Racing competed in the GT4 class of the Japanese Super Taikyu Series. On the demanding Fuji circuit, the team started the season’s only 24-hour race from sixth place in the ST-Z category. The driver quintet of Yuki Ano/Yuki Fujii/Hideo Honda/Seiya Jin/Ritmo Miyata improved to third position in its class over the course of 715 laps in the production-based GT sports car.

Coming up next week
10–12/06 Botniaring (FIN), round 2, BaTCC/BEC6H
11/06 Le Mans (F), round 4, Le Mans Cup
11–12/06 Hungaroring (H), round 3, FIA WTCR