Audi Singapore Club

Podium for Audi driver Jerry Wang

Jerry Wang celebrated a podium finish in his class during the third GT Asia race weekend. The Hong Kong-Chinese produced a great recovery drive in his Audi R8 LMS fielded by Absolute Racing at the Fuji Speedway, Japan. Wang started the GTM category from sixth place in the wet and rainy conditions before crossing the finish line in third place after 29 laps.

Audi drivers team-up for cycle tour

The Audi drivers from DTM and WEC used the summer weather to explore the region close to Audi Sport in Neuburg on two wheels. The endurance and sprint drivers pedaled through the Altmühltal nature park along with the Team Bosses as well as Head of Audi Motorsport Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich, Dieter Gass (Head of DTM) and Chris Reinke (Head of LMP). “We used the relaxed atmosphere to sharpen our senses for the tasks we face in the second half of the season,” said Dr. Ullrich.

Audi race drivers at R8 presentation

In July, in Portugal, the Audi R8 high-performance sports car will be unveiled to international media for the first time. At the trackside event at Portimão, six former and current Audi race drivers will be present as well. Markus Winkelhock and Rahel Frey, who are successful in the racing version, the R8 LMS, and the former Le Mans winners Allan McNish, Tom Kristensen, Dindo Capello and Marco Werner will be on hand as experts for interviews. On request, the professional race drivers will also be pleased to chauffeur the journalists around the race track at the Algarve in the race taxi of the new Audi R8 LMS GT3 sports car.

Rahel Frey at Ski Champions Golf in St. Moritz

Audi driver Rahel Frey visited the famous downhill ski run ‘Freier Fall’ (‘Free Fall’) in St. Moritz on Thursday and met with ski racer Marc Berthod. They had accepted an invitation by the 2017 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships St. Moritz and Audi. At the start of the ‘Freier Fall’ men’s downhill run at Corviglia with a 100 percent descent, the World Cup downhillers accelerate from 0 to 140 km/h in six seconds. Even for experienced racers like Rahel Frey or Marc Berthod, who are used to going to their limits in terms of extreme centrifugal forces, this is an exceptional experience. “For me as someone who is not a professional skier, it is nearly impossible to imagine that you can reach the finish unharmed on this run,” Frey said in awe. Afterwards, the Audi St. Moritz Ski Champions Golf Get-Together in front of the quattro Bar at Corviglia was on the Swiss’ agenda.

In September, Audi will start producing the new Audi R8 LMS for its customers. The fundamentally redesigned production-based race car instantly won its first 24-hour race at the Nürburgring in May. Now the second test in endurance racing is coming up on the Spa-Francorchamps circuit in the Belgian Ardennes. Only after this test will Audi determine the final specifications.

“The races at Spa and at the Nürburgring are not comparable. The Spa 24 Hours are part of the Blancpain Endurance Series in which, due to the regulations, a different rating of the various race cars applies than at the Nürburgring,” says Romolo Liebchen, Head of Audi Sport customer racing. The teams work together with a different tire manufacturer who is mandatory for all the participants in this series. These differences should not be underrated, according to Liebchen. “Still, we’re going to try everything we can to continue our success and have put ourselves in a strong position in terms of technology, the teams and the drivers. Following the race at Spa, we’ll be ready for the production launch.”

Audi won the iconic event at Spa in 2011 and 2014 with Vincent Vosse’s Belgian Audi Club Team WRT and in 2012 with Ernst Moser’s Phoenix Racing team. Each of these two squads is fielding two new Audi R8 LMS cars this year. Four high-caliber driver lineups will be tackling the challenge in the production-based mid-engine sports car. Last year’s winners René Rast, Laurens Vanthoor and Markus Winkelhock will compete in car number ‘1.’ In the sister car of WRT, Nico Müller, Stéphane Ortelli and Frank Stippler, who are bringing a wealth of experience from further 24-hour victories at the Nürburgring, at Spa and Le Mans to the event, will be taking turns at the wheel.

Ernst Moser relies on six 24-hour race winners as well. Three Le Mans winners – Marcel Fässler, André Lotterer and Mike Rockenfeller – are forming a driver squad at Phoenix. In addition, Fässler mounted the top step of the podium at Spa in 2007. Christian Mamerow, Christopher Mies and Nicki Thiim, who are sharing another cockpit at Phoenix, have previously recorded Nürburgring victories in their career histories.

Thanks to its customers Audi is equalizing its top number of ten race cars fielded at Spa in 2012. The four teams, WRT, Parker Racing, Saintéloc Racing and ISR, are fielding six other Audi cars. They are battling for success and championship points in the Pro Cup, Pro Am Cup and Am Cup classifications with their drivers. The customer teams rely on the successful Audi R8 LMS ultra. In total, 33 Audi drivers will be on the grid of the Spa 24 Hours. Audi Sport customer racing supports all teams with services, spare parts and customer racing consultants.

In the German electrical energy mix, the share of renewable energies is growing rapidly – this share already reached 33 percent in the first half of 2015. However, regional expansion of wind and photovoltaic generation plants leads to increasingly larger load fluctuations – it is therefore important to have flexibly available consumers such as the Audi e-gas plant to buffer load peaks and thereby stabilize energy grids.

The Audi e‑gas plant in Werlte (Emsland) is able to respond to even slight load changes in the electricity grid to balance them out. This has resulted in the plant being accepted under the direction of grid operator Tennet TSO GmbH. The plant had to be able to draw 6 megawatts of power from the grid within five minutes as well as run prescribed load profiles. By passing this test, the Audi e‑gas plant has been qualified for participation in what is known as the electricity balancing market that is organized by grid operators. This means that the plant can now target higher annual operating times, which benefits the power grid and the amount of Audi e‑gas that is produced.

The power-to-gas plant in Werlte, which produces synthetic methane (Audi e‑gas) from water and CO₂ utilizing wind-generated electricity, was launched in 2013. Audi customers can pay with the Audi e‑gas card at CNG fueling stations, and Audi then feeds equivalent quantities of e-gas into the German natural gas network. The Audi A3 Sportback g‑tron* with 81 kW (110 hp) of power is currently available from dealers. The new Audi A4 Avant g‑tron with 125 kW (170 hp) will follow next year.

Both models can be driven climate-neutrally with Audi e‑gas. This means that the amount of CO₂ that is emitted during vehicle operation is equal to the amount that is chemically bound to produce the fuel.

In addition to e‑gas production in multiple plants, the brand with the four rings is also working on a broad front to develop other CO₂‑neutral fuels – Audi e‑fuels. In early 2015, a pilot plant in Dresden that is operated by project partner sunfire GmbH started up production of the synthetic fuel Audi e‑diesel. Audi is also conducting joint research on the synthetic manufacture of Audi e‑gasoline with the French company Global Bioenergies S.A.

In another project, Audi is working together with the USA-based company Joule Unlimited Technologies, Inc., which is using microorganisms to produce the synthetic fuels Audi e‑diesel and Audi e‑ethanol. In the field of e-gas, Audi is also working with a partner to develop a new production method in which the methanation process runs on biological pathways.

“In Sonoma, we took the Audi RS 7 piloted driving concept to its physical limits lap after lap, and it handled the task with uniform precision,” says Thomas Müller, who is responsible for the development of brake, steering and driver assistance systems at Audi. “The car turned in lap times that were better than those of sports car drivers.” The RS 7 took just 2:01.01 minutes to complete the 4,050-meter (2.5 mi) circuit.

For some time now, Audi has been testing piloted driving under increasingly challenging conditions. In October 2014, an RS 7 nicknamed “Bobby” already completed a driverless lap on the Hockenheimring at speeds up to 240 km/h(149.1 mph). The new generation of the car is named “Robby,” has a power output of 412 kW (560 hp) and is around 400 kg (881.8 lb) lighter than its predecessor. Whether braking, steering or accelerating, the piloted car controls all driving functions fully autonomously and with maximum precision.

Audi is also testing piloted driving in the challenging situation of real road traffic.
At the start of 2015, “Jack” – an Audi A7 piloted driving concept with many near-production solutions – drove on public highways from Silicon Valley to Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Shortly thereafter, this car also drove autonomously on German autobahns at speeds up to 130 km/h (80.8 mph). At CES Asia in May 2015, journalists also had an opportunity to experience piloted driving – in the traffic of megacity Shanghai.

The development work, which includes driving on a very wide array of testing grounds, is yielding valuable knowledge for series-production systems – from the sensor technology and data processing to vehicle control and stabilization.

The technologies for piloted driving stand for safety, time savings, efficiency and convenience. The systems can make a valuable contribution to safety, especially when the driver is overwhelmed or underwhelmed by driving tasks. In addition, it gives drivers greater freedom for organizing their time in the car. When used to temporarily assume driving tasks, the predictive technology makes driving more efficient, reduces stress and enhances comfort. Piloted driving will make its production debut in the next generation of the luxury-class sedan, the Audi A8. The systems can assume control of the car during parking or in stop-and-go traffic on freeways at speeds up to 60 km/h (37.3 mph).

Nathan Antunes wins in Australia

Commanding victory by Nathan Antunes in Australia: In race two of the Australian GT Championship round held on the city street circuit in Townsville, he celebrated his third win of the season with a more than ten-second advantage in the Audi R8 LMS ultra. Previously, the Australian on taking fourth place in the first race had barely missed the podium. In the Trophy Class, Mark Griffith in the Audi R8 LMS finished race two as the runner-up, ahead of his brand colleagues Greg Taylor and Barton Mawer.

Audi R8 LMS ultra on podium twice in Italy

Podium success in Italy: On the fourth race weekend of the Italian GT Championship at Mugello, the drivers of Audi customer team Audi Sport Italia were battling for victory in both races and clinched two podium places. In race one, Dindo Capello and Emanuele Zonzini in their Audi R8 LMS ultra took second place. In the second race, their team-mates Marco Mapelli and Andrea Amici finished as the runners-up as well. Capello/Zonzini, who had crossed the finish line in third place, dropped to fourth position due to a retroactive time penalty.

Filipe Albuquerque celebrates victory in ELMS

Success for WEC driver Filipe Albuquerque in the European Le Mans Series (ELMS): Together with his British team-mates Simon Dolan and Harry Tincknell the Portuguese in an LMP2 sports car of Team Jota Sport won in round three of the season at the Red Bull Ring in Austria.

Audi racers inspire employees in Neckarsulm

The Audi drivers and their cars that were successful at the 24-hour races at the Nürburgring and Le Mans visited the Neckarsulm factory on Wednesday. Edward Sandström and Laurens Vanthoor, who were part of the winning quartet in the Eifel, were kept busy signing autographs during the employee event, as were Marcel Fässler, André Lotterer and Benoît Tréluyer. The factory driver trio finished third in the Audi R18 e-tron quattro at Le Mans in June. The LMP1 sportscar, as well as the Audi R8 LMS that won at the Nürburgring – driven by Fässler and Sandström respectively – spooled off several demonstration laps around the factory premises with the enthusiastic employees looking on. The drivers were also guests at the workers’ assembly.

Sporty Le Mans drivers

The Audi drivers Benoît Tréluyer and Marco Bonanomi used the summer break in the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) for some sporting activities. Bonanomi, in a triathlon sprint in his hometown Lecco (Italy), an Italian Championship round, set a personal best time of 1h 03m 23s and took 50th place overall in a field of 380 participants. In Sirmione, Italy, at the end of June, he had completed a triathlon covering the Olympic distance in 2h 17m 50s. Benoît Tréluyer competed in a mountain bike event in Les Deux Alpes, France, this weekend.

Jamie Green’s children drive an Audi Junior quattro

Jamie Green’s ‘vehicle fleet’ has been enlarged by two Audi models. At Zandvoort, the DTM leader of the standings took possession of two new Audi Junior quattro cars sporting the distinctive black Audi Sport graphics. “It was high time for our two sons to finally starting driving an Audi too,” said the Audi driver. To their father’s delight, Zachary and William Green immediately tried out their new toys with intensity in the paddock at Zandvoort.