The “next big Audi” at the DTM

The “next big Audi” at the DTM

Link to oneighturbo.com

The “next big Audi” at the DTM

Posted: 16 Sep 2010 05:48 AM PDT

Markus Winkelhock and the Playmate of the year 2009 Michaela Grauke

The “next big Audi” will be one of the stars at the DTM at Oschersleben (September 17 to 19). Before the DTM race starts 40 Audi A1 cars will do a lap around the track.

The Sales Organization Germany of AUDI AG will hand over the premium vehicles from the small car segment to dealers at the Audi Drive Away. The lap around the race track on Sunday will be the grand finale of this activity.

  • 40 Audi A1 cars at the “Audi Drive Away” at Oschersleben
  • Junior Curling Team Germany to visit Audi
  • Slot car race with Audi “factory” drivers

    • The Junior Curling Team Germany – the German Junior Champions in 2008, 2009 and 2010 – will be looking over Audi’s shoulders at Oschersleben. The sportsmen Konstantin Kämpf, Alexander Kämpf, Marc Bastian, Philipp Häckelsmiller and coach Marcus Angrick are paying a return visit to the DTM squad after the racers had completed a training unit at the Ice Sports Center Oberstdorf during their Winter Camp in February.

    Audi A1 Worthersee

    A race before the race will be contested by the Audi “factory” drivers Mike Rockenfeller and Mattias Ekström on Saturday night. Together with Rockenfeller’s race engineer Jürgen Jungklaus the two drivers with two Audi R8 LMS cars will participate in the “Audi DTM Challenge” – a slot car race to be held at the Audi Team and Media Hospitality.

    Michael Dick, Member of the Audi Management Board for Technical Development, will visit the Audi DTM squad at the eighth round held at the circuit in the plains near Magdeburg. Dick has brought Audi’s DTM team good luck on several previous occasions.

    Two former Audi DTM drivers will take part in the supporting program at Oschersleben: the multiple Le Mans winners Frank Biela and Marco Werner will contest the Volkswagen Scirocco R-Cup as guest entrants.

    Audi used the opportunity of an “open house” hosted by the public MDR radio and television station Sachsen-Anhalt to present itself to the audience before the race at Oschersleben. The crowd had the chance to see Markus Winkelhock and Oliver Jarvis as well as an Audi A4 DTM in Magdeburg. Autograph sessions, photos with fans, interview rounds and a drawing of admission tickets yet again proved how much Europe’s most popular touring car series stays in touch with the audience.”

    - Audi Motorsport

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    Giniel de Villiers and Dirk von Zitzewitz out of Silk Way Rally after flip

    Posted: 15 Sep 2010 08:25 PM PDT

    Mark Miller and Ralph Pitchford sandblastin the dunes

    Gallery after the jump!

    The day after taking over the lead in the Silk Way Rally with their third stage win, Giniel de Villiers and Dirk von Zitzewitz are out of the Silk Way Rally. A misjudged rut caused them to roll and take out the cooling system. Not being able to repair the system on spot, they were forced to retire. USA’s Mark Miller took 2nd place along with navigator, Ralph Pitchford.

    The Volkswagen duo piloting a Race Touareg 3 at the Silk Way Rally through Russia heads the overall standings after five of eight legs. On the special stage from Volgograd to Astrakhan their team colleagues Nasser Al-Attiyah/Timo Gottschalk (Q/D) set the third-fasted time and became the overall runners-up. Mark Miller/Ralph Pitchford (USA/ZA) in a third “Dakar” prototype from Wolfsburg are third overall and thus heading for a podium result as well.

    For Giniel de Villiers and Dirk von Zitzewitz on the other hand the Silk Way Rally ended early. The 2009 “Dakar” winning duo rolled over at kilometre 324 of the special stage after encountering a transverse rut in off-road terrain. Thanks to the safety concept of the Race Touareg the South African-German pairing sustained no injuries but was forced to retire due to the damaged cooling system of their car.

    From Volgograd across the steppe into the Danube Delta to Astrakhan: the fifth leg took the entrants to the historic trading point between the Caspian Sea and the Silk Road which is world famous for its Beluga caviar. The longest special stage of the Silk Way Rally again offered the participants varied terrain with off-road navigation and dune sections with very soft sand.

    Kris Nissen (Volkswagen Motorsport Director)
    “It’s been a long and hard day with ups and downs. Our Race Touareg vehicles again ran without any problems and our four teams fought a captivating battle for stage victory. Unfortunately, Dirk von Zitzewitz and Giniel de Villiers caught a transverse rut and rolled over, which forced them to retire. The most important thing, though, is that neither was injured in the accident.”

    #100 – Carlos Sainz (E), 1st place leg / 1st place overall
    “Today was a very thrilling day for all of us, it was a leg just like at the Dakar Rally. We did well straight from the start of the special stage and quickly recovered the two minutes we’d started behind Giniel de Villiers. Nasser Al-Attiyah, as well, caught up and the lead changed several times between us. In between we stopped and helped our team colleagues Giniel and Dirk who had rolled over.”

    #101 – Giniel de Villiers (ZA), retirement
    “I’m hugely disappointed. To roll over at such a relatively harmless place is frustrating. Nasser Al-Attiyah, Carlos Sainz and we took turns leading the stage for some time. Just as we were leaving a dune belt we noticed a transverse rut that was about two metres wide and 50 centimetres deep too late. The car got caught in it and rolled over forwards coming to rest on the roof. With help from Carlos and Nasser we put it back on its wheels again and could have gone on. All systems were still running – just the cooling system was too heavily damaged to continue.”

    #102 – Nasser Al-Attiyah (Q), 3rd place leg / 2nd place overall
    “First of all: it’s a shame that Giniel de Villiers and Dirk von Zitzewitz retired after the roll-over. But sometimes that’s just part of racing. Up to that moment it had been a really good day for us and we made up a lot of time. But after helping Giniel and Dirk and resuming our drive we got stuck in the dunes 100 kilometres before the finish. That again cost us a lot of time. If we hadn’t gotten stuck we could have achieved an even better result.”

    #104 – Mark Miller (USA), 2nd place leg / 3rd place overall
    “Apparently the moment of Ralph and I opening the course for a change was necessary. At the beginning of the leg we had some minor problems and were looking for the way here and there. But after overtaking Nasser Al-Attiyah, who had gotten stuck, and Carlos Sainz, who had gotten lost, things just clicked and we were working in perfect harmony. Now I’m hoping that we broke our duck because tomorrow will be as tough as the past days have been.”

    - Volkswagen Motorsport

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    Teaser 2 and Lamborghini’s Manifesto for future supersportscars

    Posted: 15 Sep 2010 08:00 PM PDT

    Lamborghini. Carbon dated. Paris 2010.

    Stunning carbon fiber work!

    “Lamborghini stands for extreme and uncompromising supersportscars of the best Italian tradition.

    Tradition as a value however, lives at Lamborghini alongside innovation.

    We are redefining the future of our supersportscars around the two main reasons to buy: design and performance.

    Design has been and always will be reason number one, and we will make sure a Lamborghini will always be recognizable through its significant stylistic features.

    Regarding performance, until few years ago priorities were, in this order: top speed, acceleration and handling.

    In recent years this has been changing. Together with design, handling and acceleration are becoming more important. Speed is not as important anymore, because all supersportscars are exceeding 300km/h (186 mph) and this is a speed that you cannot reach even on a racetrack, let alone normal roads. We think it is time to make a shift and talk more about handling and acceleration.

    The key factor in terms of better handling and acceleration, meaning more immediate pleasure in driving, is the power-to-weight ratio. This is not so much about top speed and so the future will not be so focused on increasing the power, even because CO2 emissions do play a role for supersportscars too. That means the key is in reducing the weight.

    A crucial part of this is to understand how to reduce the weight. From the middle of the Eighties, the average weight of our cars has increased by 500 kg because of active and passive safety, comfort and emissions reduction issues, and this is something that we have to change. Since we cannot reduce safety or comfort in our cars, we have to reduce the weight by using new materials.

    The magic word for this is “carbon fiber”. We started working with carbon fiber in Sant’Agata Bolognese over thirty years ago and today, with our two laboratories in Sant’Agata Bolognese and in Seattle, We are mastering a broad range of technologies which put us in a leadership position for low-volume production.

    Every new Lamborghini will make the best use of carbon fiber to reduce weight.”

    Stephan Winkelmann, President and CEO of Automobili Lamborghini SpA

    Sant’Agata Bolognese, 14th September 2010

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