The third race weekend of the Audi Sport TT Cup will have a touch of winter – figuratively speaking. The ski superstars Felix Neureuther (D), Marcel Hirscher (A) and Aksel Lund Svindal (N) will be on the grid at Spielberg, Austria, on August 1 und 2. In the field of 24 drivers, the three guest entrants will be contesting a challenge of their own.
The Audi organizational team worked for several months to make this competition of the three winter sports aces in the Audi Sport TT Cup reality. “This challenge is really special in the history of our one-make cup that has just begun,” says Project Leader Rolf Michl. “Neureuther, Hirscher and Svindal are three absolute superstars from alpine skiing to go out on track. Following the rallycross drivers at Hockenheim and the nobles at the Norisring, we’re going to see another thrilling competition as part of the DTM race weekend.”
Hirscher is currently the world’s best ski racer. In the past four years, the Austrian won the overall World Cup and last winter secured victories in the giant slalom and slalom events as well, relegating his rival and friend Neureuther to second place. The 26-year-old is an enthusiastic motor racer and in 2013 contested a regularity race at the Red Bull Ring in an Audi RS 5. In this discipline, a time is set on lap one that has to be matched as closely as possible on the subsequent laps.
Neureuther is already eagerly awaiting the duel with Hirscher. At the beginning of 2015, the son of ski legends Rosi Mittermaier and Christian Neureuther ventured into the unfamiliar terrain of motorsport. During the Audi FIS Ski World Cup in Kitzbühel the now 31-year-old took the wheel of DTM star Mattias Ekström’s Audi S1 EKS RX quattro and proved his racing talent in a slalom practice session. Svindal is the high-speed racer among the three ski stars. The 32-year-old Norwegian is a downhill specialist, has won the overall and the downhill World Cup twice in his 14-year career, and in 2010 was the Olympic gold medalist in the super G event.