Fresh off its official launch from two months ago, Audi’s all-new R8 LMS GT3 race car clinched its first ever victory at the Nurburgring.

The R8 LMS took the win by 40.729s ahead of the Marc VDS BMW team, and a whole lap in front of rival teams from Porsche and Mercedes.

The entire weekend was filled with incidents and some very exciting racing, which is why we should applaud both the R8 and its drivers (Christopher Mies, Edward Sandstrom, Laurens Vanthoor and Nico Muller).

Romolo Liebchen, Head of Audi Sport customer racing was quoted while offering his congratulations to the team and also saying that the winners “never lost their cool even in the face of some minor irregularities and held up to the pressure. The whole squad of Audi Sport customer racing is happy to see the new R8 LMS instantly delivering on our promise of it being a competitive, attractive and reliable race car our customers can look forward to starting this fall.”

Winning this race was a clear testament to what the new R8 LMS is capable of. We’re talking about a car that’s 25 kg lighter than its predecessor. Also, 50% of the R8 LMS GT3 is based on its production counterpart – and this should appeal to Audi R8 fans in general.

Bottom line, Audi couldn’t have hoped for a better result, especially when we take into account all the incidents that took place at the Nurburgring. Of course, we could argue that the Marc VDS BMW team had some misfortune, being delayed by a pit fire. Same can be said for the Black Falcon Mercedes team which ended up losing a wheel.

But that’s all part of racing. Everything that happens on the track is part of the race – and when your team is rolling, you tend to make your own luck out there.

Results

1 Mies/Müller/Sandström/Vanthoor (Audi R8 LMS), 156 laps
2 Luhr/Martin/Palttala/Westbrook (BMW) + 40.729s
3 Dumbreck/Henzler/Imperatori/Ragginger (Porsche) – 1 lap
4 Adorf/Catsburg/Farfus/Müller (BMW) – 1 lap
5 Buurman/Al Faisal/Haupt/van Lagen (Mercedes) – 1 lap
6 Cerruti/Edwards/Keilwitz/Laser (BMW) – 3 laps
7 Jöns/Kaffer/Thiim/Vanthoor (Audi R8 LMS) – 3 laps
8 Brück/Primat/Schmid/Seefried (Bentley) – 5 laps
9 Buncombe/Hoshino/Krumm/Ordonez (Nissan) – 5 laps
10 Heyer/Huff/Frommenwiler/Krognes (Mercedes) – 5 laps
11 Busch/Busch/Frankenhout (Audi R8 LMS ultra) – 7 laps
12 Cheng/Lee/Thong/Yoong (Audi R8 LMS ultra) – 8 laps

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