A ten-year absence in the 12-hour race at Bathurst ended in glory on Sunday, after the two cars sent to impress the crowds managed to achieve an impressive 1-2 victory at Australia's famous endurance race.
Fielded by Team Joest, the two Audi R8 LMS driven by Bathurst rookies Marc Basseng/Christopher Mies/Darryl O’Young and Mark Eddy/Craig Lowndes/Warren Luff, respectively, were crowned the winners of the race.
The two teams were only separated by a distance of 0.7 seconds, after both managed to lock out the front row in qualifying. During the race, the GT3 sports car achieved a new lap record on the 6.213 km circuit at Mount Panorama.
The Bathurst race was the first to be run by the new managing company of Audi's customer sports program, quattro GmbH. The company has been put in charge with this program starting with the current season and plans to line-up the R8 LMS at races across more continents.
“It couldn’t have been better for Audi. That was a successful beginning of a new era in the customer sports program with quattro GmbH. A 1-2 win on such a demanding circuit once more underlined the qualities of the R8 LMS,” said Romolo Liebchen, head of customer sport at quattro.
“First of all, our customers will profit from that as they receive a GT3 car that is versatile, reliable and relatively easy to maintain. I hope that we can persuade even more people to become our customers after this strong showing.”
The race results are listed below:
1. Basseng/Mies/O'Young (Audi R8 LMS), 292 laps in 12h 01m 30.7045s
2. Eddy/Lowndes/Luff (Audi R8 LMS) + 0.7141s
3. Baird/Quinn/Quinn (Porsche) -1 lap
4. Wall/Mawer/Crick (Porsche) -3 laps
5. Lago/Kingsley/Russell (Porsche) -10 laps
6. Simonsen/Searle/Lester (Ferrari) -16 laps
7. O’Donnell/McLennan/Konopka (Porsche) -28 laps
8. Dippie/Thompson/Maddren (Porsche) -35 laps
9. Conroy/Robson/Brame (Mitsubishi) -36 laps
10. O’Donnell/Hansen/D’Agostin (BMW) -40 laps
Fielded by Team Joest, the two Audi R8 LMS driven by Bathurst rookies Marc Basseng/Christopher Mies/Darryl O’Young and Mark Eddy/Craig Lowndes/Warren Luff, respectively, were crowned the winners of the race.
The two teams were only separated by a distance of 0.7 seconds, after both managed to lock out the front row in qualifying. During the race, the GT3 sports car achieved a new lap record on the 6.213 km circuit at Mount Panorama.
The Bathurst race was the first to be run by the new managing company of Audi's customer sports program, quattro GmbH. The company has been put in charge with this program starting with the current season and plans to line-up the R8 LMS at races across more continents.
“It couldn’t have been better for Audi. That was a successful beginning of a new era in the customer sports program with quattro GmbH. A 1-2 win on such a demanding circuit once more underlined the qualities of the R8 LMS,” said Romolo Liebchen, head of customer sport at quattro.
“First of all, our customers will profit from that as they receive a GT3 car that is versatile, reliable and relatively easy to maintain. I hope that we can persuade even more people to become our customers after this strong showing.”
The race results are listed below:
1. Basseng/Mies/O'Young (Audi R8 LMS), 292 laps in 12h 01m 30.7045s
2. Eddy/Lowndes/Luff (Audi R8 LMS) + 0.7141s
3. Baird/Quinn/Quinn (Porsche) -1 lap
4. Wall/Mawer/Crick (Porsche) -3 laps
5. Lago/Kingsley/Russell (Porsche) -10 laps
6. Simonsen/Searle/Lester (Ferrari) -16 laps
7. O’Donnell/McLennan/Konopka (Porsche) -28 laps
8. Dippie/Thompson/Maddren (Porsche) -35 laps
9. Conroy/Robson/Brame (Mitsubishi) -36 laps
10. O’Donnell/Hansen/D’Agostin (BMW) -40 laps