Many Audi customer teams returned from the last weekend in April with trophies from GT3 and TCR competitions across Europe.
Audi R8 LMS GT3
Podium results at the start of the season: In two European GT3 racing series, the Audi R8 LMS was one of the fastest race cars in the field at the start of the 2024 season. ABT Sportsline achieved a podium result in the DTM at Oschersleben. At the opening event, Ricardo Feller started Saturday’s race in fourth place. After the start and at the pit stop, he gained a position each time in the Audi R8 LMS when a full-course yellow neutralization phase created new conditions. The Swiss driver then fought a spectacular battle for position with Ferrari driver Jack Aitken and Lamborghini driver Mirko Bortolotti, eventually crossing the finish line in third place. In the International GT Open, Olimp Racing was the best of three Audi customer teams at the season opener in Portimão. Karol Basz took pole position in the Polish team’s Audi R8 LMS on a rain-soaked track in qualifying for Saturday’s race. Basz maintained the lead until the pit stop, when his compatriot Marcin Jedlinski took over the cockpit. He was in second place until the penultimate lap, when Marco Pulcini overtook him in a Ferrari. In the end, Olimp Racing took third place overall and second place in the Pro-Am classification.
Audi RS 3 LMS (TCR)
Convincing start: Martin Kadlečik achieved a podium result on his debut in the TCR Eastern Europe. In the opening round of the racing series at Balaton Park in Hungary, the Czech driver finished second in the second sprint in an Audi RS 3 LMS entered by the Aditis Racing team. Kadlečik had started from fifth place and improved to second position over the course of the first lap. In a field of 14 competitors, he maintained his position to the finish, leaving last year’s champion Mat’o Homola in a Hyundai more than six seconds behind. Martin Kadlečik is now second in the junior standings. The season of the new TCR European Endurance also began at Balaton Park, in which Texaco Team AMS entered three Audi RS 3 LMS cars. The Turkish-Italian driver combination of Turgut Konukoğlu/Eric Brigliadori won the Endurance classification ahead of Seda Kaçan/Ibrahim Okyay in another Audi. Heiko Hammel/Reinhard Nehls won the Cup TC class in the Audi RS 3 LMS at the second round of the German club racing series DMV NES 500 in Zolder.
Audi Sport
Big goals in Italy: Emilio Radaelli’s Audi Sport Italia squad is contesting two ambitious programs in domestic GT racing in the 2024 season in cooperation with Tresor Competition of Ferdinando Geri. The team from the province of Novara in Piedmont will compete in both the sprint and endurance categories of the Campionato Italiano Gran Turismo with two Audi R8 LMS cars. Two sprint races are scheduled to kick off the racing series in Misano from May 3 to 5. One cockpit will be shared by Italians Pietro Delli Guanti/Rocco Mazzola, while Andrea Cola and Leonardo Moncini will be chasing points in the second car. Audi Sport Italia was one of the first teams in Audi’s customer racing program in 2009. The racing team, which was founded 40 years ago, won the national GT3 title for the first time in 2011, the sprint title again in 2020 and 2021, as well as the endurance classification in 2021 and the sprint amateur classification in 2022.
Coming up next week
03–04/05 Marrakesh (MAR), round 2, Kumho FIA TCR World Tour
03–04/05 Le Castellet (F), round 2, Le Mans Cup
03–04/05 Hampton Downs (NZ), round 1, North Island Endurance Championship
03–05/05 Sebring (USA), round 3, GT America
03–05/05 Misano (I), round 1, TCR Italy
03–05/05 Buriram (THA), round 1, Thailand Super Series
03–05/05 Misano (I), round 1, Campionato Italiano GT Sprint
04–05/05 Brands Hatch (GB), round 1, Fanatec GT Sprint Cup