Audi R8 LMS Survived Its First 24H Nurburgring Race

The newest GT3 race car sourced from Audi, the R8 LMS, took a spot at this year's 24 Hours Nurburgring and managed to complete the race. To the delight of the manufacturer, all 4 cars which entered the race managed to cross the finish line. To complete the picture, the R8 raced by Christian Abt, Jean-François Hemroulle, Pierre Kaffer and Lucas Luhr (Team ABT Sportsline) managed to finish second overall and managed the first victory for the R8 LMS in its class.

"For the Audi R8 LMS, this race represented a final test under extreme conditions on the world’s longest race track,” Wolfgang Ullrich, head of Audi Motorsport said. “We were able to demonstrate that our new GT3 sports car is absolutely competitive for customer sport. And the number 97 R8 LMS ran without the slightest problems despite the incredible speed.”

One of the incidents which stared the R8 LMS raced by the Team Phoenix Racing's drivers, Marc Basseng, Mike Rockenfeller and Frank Stippler.
Mid race, their vehicle stopped due to a glitch in the power transmission system. After it got replaced, the team managed to get back and close the six-lap gap, finishing fifth in the end.

Other problems occurred as well, giving the manufacturer an idea on which systems need a bit more tweaking. The R8s experienced leaking cooler of the power steering system, gearbox failure, an overloading of the CAN bus on-board system and even fuel supply system problems.

“We’ll analyze the problems that occurred on the three other vehicles and feed the findings into the final version of the R8 LMS, which will be delivered to customers starting this fall. We now know that we’ve got a very good base,” Ullrich added.