Victory and Championship Lead for Audi Sport Italia

source: Audi Sport

Second victory of the Audi R8 LMS in Italian sprint racing series
Kelvin van der Linde/Patric Niederhauser again sole championship leaders in the ADAC GT Masters
Five victories in three countries for the Audi RS 3 LMS

While the GT3 version of the Audi R8 LMS remains on the road to success in Germany and Italy, the T3-HRT-Motorsport team achieved its first podium result of the season in the ADAC GT4 Germany. With a total of five victories in America, New Zealand and Sweden, the Audi RS 3 LMS was Audi Sport customer racing’s most successful model on the first weekend of October.

Audi R8 LMS GT3

Second win of the season and championship lead in Italy: Audi Sport Italia celebrated its second win of the season in the Campionato Italiano GT Sprint. After his opening victory at Misano in August, Riccardo Agostini remained unbeaten in another race at Mugello. Audi Sport driver Mattia Drudi was the second driver on board for the first time this year in a sprint race. Starting third, Agostini handed over the Audi R8 LMS to his Italian compatriot in seventh place during the driver change following difficult weather conditions. Despite a pit stop handicap time of 20 additional seconds defined in the regulations due to previous successes, Drudi then stormed forward, grabbed opponent after opponent and took the lead with two laps to go. The young talent won with a lead of six tenths of a second. Drudi had already won the season opener of the Italian endurance racing series for Audi Sport Italia at the circuit in Tuscany in July. After the Mugello weekend, his team-mate Riccardo Agostini leads the sprint classification at the season’s halfway point with a nine-point advantage.

Tension at the top of the table: After the fourth of seven events in the ADAC GT Masters, the battle for the championship could hardly be more exciting. The two Audi Sport drivers Kelvin van der Linde/Patric Niederhauser had come to the Sachsenring at the top of the standings with a four-point lead, but had lost their position after finishing seventh in the first race. In the second race they finished third in the Audi R8 LMS. This put them back in first place in the standings and seven points ahead of their pursuers. Their racing team Rutronik Racing is also leading the team classification by four points. Team WRT achieved the best race result of any Audi customer team at Sachsenring. From ninth place on the grid, Audi Sport driver Dries Vanthoor and his Belgian compatriot Charles Weerts stormed up to second place in Sunday’s race. They are currently fifth in the standings.

Podium in New Zealand: At the second round of the South Island Endurance Series at the Ruapuna circuit, another Audi customer team was on the podium. Christina Orr-West and Brendon Leitch took third place in the Audi R8 LMS ultra, as they did at the opening race in Teretonga.

Audi R8 LMS GT4

Second place in the south of France: Saintéloc Racing achieved its second podium result at the third GT4 France round in Le Castellet. As in Magny-Cours recently, defending champions Gregory Guilvert/Fabien Michal took second place, this time in the second of three races. From fifth place on the grid, Guilvert in the Audi R8 LMS GT4 had already improved to third place in the first three laps of the high-speed circuit. On lap six he took second place. Fabien Michal led the one-hour race after the driver change from the 15th lap. It was not until the penultimate lap that he was unable to keep an Alpine from Mirage Racing behind him and crossed the finish line in second place, just 0.393 seconds behind.

First podium of the season: The Audi customer team T3-HRT-Motorsport achieved its first podium result at the third round of the ADAC GT4 Germany. At the Dresden-based team’s home race at the Sachsenring, 20-year-old Briton William Tregurtha and his 16-year-old German teammate Hugo Sasse in the Audi R8 LMS GT4 improved from sixth on the grid to third position on Sunday. With the fastest time in qualifying for the first race, Tregurtha had already proven the day before how well he copes with the demanding rollercoaster track near Chemnitz.

Second places in South Africa: Marius Jackson is again entering the Audi R8 LMS GT4 in South Africa this season in the G&H Transport Extreme Supercars racing series. In the second round on the Phakisa Freeway, the businessman finished second in his class in both sprint races.

Audi RS 3 LMS (TCR)

Three victories and top of the table in Sweden: In TCR Scandinavia, Team Brink Motorsport achieved a record weekend at the third event in Mantorp, halfway between Gothenburg and Stockholm. For the first time this season, the Swedish Audi customer team won all three rounds with the Audi RS 3 LMS. Tobias Brink won the first two sprints, his team-mate Hannes Morin the third race. Brink thus took the lead in the standings in the decisive phase and now has a 14-point lead, while his team also leads the team standings with 14 points. In the junior classification Hannes Morin is 39 points ahead of his pursuer. The championship will be decided in a week’s time at the final in Knutstorp.

Successful end of the season: The New German Performance Team celebrated its first victory of the season at the season finale of TC America in Indianapolis. Tristan Herbert was in third place in the Audi RS 3 LMS when an accident between the two cars in front of him called the safety car on the scene. After the caution period, the race lasted another seven minutes, during which Herbert withstood the attacks of his pursuers and won by 28 hundredths of a second. The next day Herbert led the second race again, but in the end he was beaten by Honda driver Victor González. The New German Performance Team competed in two TC America events this season, achieving a total of three podium results.

Three trophies in New Zealand: Team Track Tec Racing celebrated its first endurance victory in the 3-hour race at the second round of the South Island Endurance Series. After missing the win in the opening round by only nine tenths of a second, Rowan Shepherd/Lochlainn Fitzgerald-Symes won the second race in the Audi RS 3 LMS in Ruapuna with a commanding ten-lap lead. At the same event, Track Tec Racing also took part in the one-hour race with two Audi RS 3 LMS. In the Class B, which was contested by eight participants, Dennis Chapman took second place ahead of Debbie Chapman.