Fabian Vettel and Benoît Tréluyer in the Audi Sport TT Cup this coming weekend 01.05.2017: Audi Sport TT Cup season opener with 18 participants at Hockenheim TCR race wins for the Audi RS 3 LMS

Audi Sport TT Cup season opener with 18 participants at Hockenheim
   
 
TCR race wins for the Audi RS 3 LMS in North America and Portugal
   
 
Large presence for Audi at the ADAC season opener at Oschersleben




While the juniors and a prominent guest driver are looking forward to the Audi Sport TT Cup season opener at Hockenheim, the Audi Sport customer racing teams achieved victories and podium results in Germany, France, Portugal, Thailand, Japan and in the USA.



Audi Sport TT Cup


Driver list complete: The Audi Sport TT Cup has sixteen permanent entries, which includes three ladies, plus two guest entries in the season opener at Hockenheim. Gosia Rdest from Poland will compete in the one-make cup for the third consecutive season, completing the list of permanent drivers for the 2017 season. The most prominent names alongside the permanent drivers on the grid will be Fabian Vettel, brother of the four-time Formula 1 world champion Sebastian Vettel, and Benoît Tréluyer. The three-time Le Mans winner and FIA WEC world champion Tréluyer will take part as a guest driver during the coming weekend.


Victory in Dijon: Fabian Plentz won the fourth race of the DMV GTC season at the circuit of Dijon in France. Plentz was driving the Audi R8 LMS ultra from HCB-Rutronik Racing. His teammate, Tommy Tulpe in an Audi R8 LMS, achieved third place in the third race. In the Dunlop 60 race during the same event, Fabian Plentz and Egon Allgäuer finished runner-up, ahead of Tommy Tulpe and Fabian Plentz in third.



Second place in North America: Andrew Davis and Mike Skeen began on a high in the SprintX season of the Pirelli World Challenge. The American driver duo finished runner-up with the Audi R8 LMS from McCann Racing at Virginia International Raceway, missing out on the win by a mere 0.239 seconds in a field with 33 entries.



Podium for the title defenders: Christopher Mies and Connor De Phillippi from Montaplast by Land-Motorsport began the new ADAC GT Masters season by standing on the podium. The reigning drivers’ champions took third position in the first race at Oschersleben.



Podium in Thailand: Daniel Bilski stood on the podium in the season opener of the Thailand Super Series in Buriram. The Australian finished runner-up in an Audi R8 LMS from B-Quik Racing.



Large presence at Oschersleben: There were no less than 26 race cars for the Audi customers in the season opener at Oschersleben. With ten Audi R8 LMS cars in the ADAC GT Masters, as well as sixteen Audi RS 3 LMS cars in the ADAC TCR Germany, Audi is the brand with the largest number of cars in both series.




The Official Cars of the ADAC GT Masters, seen in the new so-called Signature livery, included Audi cars from the Audi S3 Sportback, A4 Avant and A6 Avant, to the TT RS and the R8 Coupé V10 plus, which completed the brand’s representation at the event.




Debut success in the USA: Paul Holton, who competed in last year's Audi Sport TT Cup, gave the Audi RS 3 LMS a tremendous debut in the United States. The American won the Touring Car race of the Pirelli World Challenge in Virginia. In the second race, he finished second for the C360R team.



Victory in Portugal: At the combined round of TCR Spain-Ibérico and TCR Portugal, an Audi driver stood on the top step of the podium. Rafael Lobato from Veloso Motorsport won the first race at Estoril with an Audi RS 3 LMS.



Two trophies at the opener: The Audi RS 3 LMS proved its performance straight away. Sheldon van der Linde, who competed in the Audi Sport TT Cup, finished third in the first race at Oschersleben for the Prosport Performance team. In the second race, Tim Zimmermann from Target Competition finished runner-up, only 0.92 seconds being the race winner.



Podium result in Japan: Shozo Tagahara, Takuya Shirasaka and Naoto Takeda celebrated a podium result in the second round of the Super Taikyu series in Japan. At the Sugo race track, the Japanese trio from Audi Team DreamDrive finished the three-hour race third in the ST TCR class with an Audi RS 3 LMS.



Second car in the TCR International Series: The ComToYou team will now compete with two Audi RS 3 LMS cars. In the TCR International Series, which has events all over the world, the Belgian Frédéric Vervisch will join the grid from the third race weekend of the season, hosted at Spa. The Belgian’s teammate is the reigning champion, Stefano Comini from Switzerland.





Coming up next week


03-04/05 Fuji (J), Super GT second round
04-06/05 Spa (B), TCR International Series third round
04-06/05 Knutstorp (S), TCR Scandinavia first to third rounds
04-06/05 Knutstorp (S), Swedish GT Championship first round
05-07/05 Hockenheim (D), Audi Sport TT Cup first and second round
05-07/05 Adria (I), TCR Italy first and second round
06-08/05 Barbagallo (AUS), Australian GT Championship third round
04-06/05 Austin (USA), Weathertech SportsCar Championship fourth round
05-07/05 Le Castellet (F), 24H Endurance Series fourth round
06-07/05 Sepang (MAL), Audi R8 LMS Cup first and second round
06-07/05 Brands Hatch (GB), Blancpain GT Series Sprint Cup second round


       
     
Eva-Maria Becker - photo Audi