OTOMOTIVE: Audi R8 LMS ultra victorious race debut

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Audi R8 LMS ultra victorious race debut

By Johan Laubscher

A lot of excitement has been surrounding Audi’s latest GT3 race car, the R8 LMS ultra. There has been no shortage of news regarding European teams acquiring and testing their new ultras and also many rumours about who is next in line to receive their new cars. Amongst all the news it has almost gone unnoticed that the Audi R8 LMS ultra has had its race debut and a successful debut at that.

An Audi R8 LMS ultra was delivered to the Chinese and Malaysian based Absolute Racing Team. Absolute Racing is a specialist motorsport team who compete in various championships. The team runs its own race program and also runs client teams. Their client teams receive technical support from Absolute Racing. One such client team is Philip Ma’s Team Hong Kong Racing (HKG).

The R8 LMS ultra had its race debut under the Team Hong Kong Racing banner with Philip Ma at the wheel. The car was entered for round 1 of the Asian GT Series sanctioned by FRD. The FRD sanctioned Asian GT Series is not the same as the AFOS “GT Asia”, these are two different series sanctioned by different organisations. The first round of the Asian GT Series was merged with the first round of the Malaysian Super Series (MSS), a series that runs exclusively on the Malaysian Sepang circuit. The race meeting was scheduled as a support event for the 2012 Malaysian Grand Prix.

For Absolute Racing, running the Team Hong Kong Racing effort, it was a race against time. The brand new ultra arrived just in time for the race weekend. The saying “fast right out of the box” was very applicable here, as the car had literally just been delivered, and it was very fast. Philip Ma had strong qualifying performances which he backed up in the races.

During the first race Philip Ma battled hard with Asian GT rival Frank Yu and finished ahead of his rival to claim victory in round 1 of the 2012 Asian GT Series. His Asian GT victory also saw him in fourth overall for the race results. A victorious race debut for the new Audi R8 LMS ultra.

Race 2 would see a chaotic start. The top three cars had a coming together just after the start which saw all three crash into the pit wall and ricocheted across the track. Philip Ma luckily avoided the wreckage and slotted into second place overall. The race remained under safety car conditions until the last lap when the cars were released for a one lap sprint to the line. Philip Ma grabbed the lead and managed to hold off his opposition to cross the line in first place. He was later given a 20 second penalty for passing under yellow. Despite this setback the car’s performance straight out of the box was clear and the car has much potential, and it is very fast.

Audi fans can be happy knowing that the new GT3 car had a victorious debut, and this builds further excitement as we wait for the various other new Audi R8 LMS ultras to debut around the world.