“For the Asian premiere of our new race car, we selected the world’s most prestigious sprint event in GT racing,” says Romolo Liebchen, Head of Audi Sport customer racing. “Media and public awareness of this race is enormous because the Macau Grand Prix with its various racing series has a 62-year tradition.”
Two free practice plus a qualifying session will be followed by the qualification race on Saturday, November 21 and the main race on Sunday, November 22. The FIA GT World Cup in Macau will kick off a major presence of the new Audi R8 LMS in Asia. Before the end of December, the GT3 model will be contesting the 12-hour race at Sepang, followed by regular appearances on Asian race tracks starting next season. From 2016 on, the Audi R8 LMS Cup will feature the new race car while concurrently offering a classification for existing models. Audi’s first one-make cup will be entering its fifth year in 2016. In this year’s season finale at the end of October, former Formula One driver Alex Yoong defended his title barely ahead of Chinese motorsport star Cheng Congfu.
Audi redesigned the R8 LMS for the 2015 season, setting new safety benchmarks with its high crash standards. The sports car is a leader in terms of lightweight design as well. About 50 percent of the race car is based on the production model of the sports car, the Audi R8. Since September, Audi has been delivering the GT3 racing version with a power output of up to 585 hp, depending on the regulations, to customers around the world.