By Tarek Ramchani
Oschersleben is hosting the first round of the 2014 ADAC GT Masters season this weekend. The Audi brand is very well represented with cars from three different Audi Sport customer racing teams.
Five Audi R8 LMS ultra cars are taking part in the event. Prosperia C.Abt Racing is fielding three cars. MS Racing with one car under kfzteile24 APR Motorsport banner. The final Audi effort is coming from Yaco Racing.
The Audi teams performed well today in race 1. Three Audi R8 LMS ultras made it into the top 10.
The #10 Audi R8 LMS ultra from Prosperia C.Abt Racing finished in a very strong second place. René Rast and Kelvin van der Linde who shared the car starting from pole position and battled very well in the 1-hour sprint race. In the end they ended just 0.307s behind the winning Mercedes-Benz.
The #100 Audi R8 LMS ultra from kfzteile24 APR Motorsport and driven by Daniel Dobitsch and Florian Stoll was fourth, less than five seconds behind the race winners.
Yaco Racing also did well today. Rahel Frey and Philip Geipel sharing the #16 Audi R8 LMS ultra finished ninth.
Unfortunately two Audi R8 LMS ultra cars were forced to retire, both from Prosperica C.Abt Racing. The #12 Audi driven by Markus Winkelhock and Stefan Wackerbauer and the #11 Audi shared by Nicki Thiim and Fabian Hamprecht.
Race 2 is set from tomorrow. As was the case today, an Audi R8 LMS ultra will start from pole position, again with the #10 car of René Rast and Kelvin van der Linde.