By Johan Laubscher
The Audi R8 LMS ultra has been a winner straight out of the box and the latest GT3 specification car from Audi Sport has been a sensation. The new car looks fast standing still and looks even better at speed out on track. However with different GT3 Audi race cars on track, being the older Audi R8 LMS and the new Audi R8 LMS ultra some fans may battle telling the difference between these two versions. The following is a little tutorial to elaborate on the visual clues with which to distinguish between the two versions of Audi’s brilliant GT3 race cars.
Spotting an ultra can be difficult, especially depending on the angle of which you see the car. But it is possible to visually tell the two versions apart.
Front View:
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1. The new Audi R8 LMS ultra has a much wider rear wing. The older R8 LMS rear wing was 1780mm and the new ultra rear wing is 1920mm.
2. The front vender on the ultra as a slightly different shape with a lower outward appearance, this gives the ultra a lower and wider appearance, while in actual fact it is the same overall width as the older R8 LMS.
3. The air intake above the splitter is slightly different on the ultra. The ultra also does not have a visible board under the front splitter on the centreline of the car which is present on the older R8 LMS. The ultra's front splitter is completely flat underneath when viewed from the front.
4. The new Audi R8 LMS ultra only has one large front side splitter unlike the R8 LMS which had two small ones.
Side View:
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5. The rear wing endplates on the new Audi R8 LMS ultra are much larger than the older R8 LMS. See point 11 for more details.
6. The rear wing mounting of the new Audi R8 LMS ultra is in a new lower optimised position. The new mountings are lower and further rearwards (difficult to see in these pictures). See points 16 and 17 for more details.
7. The new Audi R8 LMS ultra has larger air intakes on the side of the car. See point 15 for more details.
8. The new Audi R8 LMS ultra has a small rectangular plate on the side of the front splitter.
9. The new Audi R8 LMS ultra only has one large front side splitter unlike the R8 LMS which had two small ones.
10. The new Audi R8 LMS ultra has a more extended front splitter which has a sharper shape when viewed from above. See point 12 for more detail.
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11. Point 5 continued: However, the large rear wing endplate seen in point 5 does not mean that it is defiantly an ultra. Some of the older Audi R8 LMS cars are also using the larger endplate mounted on the older, more upright mountings. As you can see above in point 11. The picture on the left is the Novadriver R8 LMS in 2011 and on the right is the same Novadriver R8 LMS in 2012 which is NOT an ultra, but it has the larger endplate. This R8 LMS is termed the 2011 evolution model so to say. It has some updates but it is not full ultra specification.Click on the photo for larger image
12. Point 10 continued: Here one can clearly see the difference between the new ultra's sharper extended front splitter and the old R8 LMS's shorter and more rounded front splitter.
Rear View:
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13. From the rear the cars are almost visually identical; the only visible difference is the wider rear wing and the lower rear wing mountings on the ultra. Both the old R8 LMS and the new ultra have a visually similar rear diffuser.
Other Aspects:
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14. The new ultra has fixed windows and a sliding window opening on the driver’s side of the car. The new ultra has carbon doors whereas the older R8 LMS had the normal production doors. The production based doors of the old car still had operating windows which could be put up or down (Note the windows on the R8 LMS on the left are in the down position). The new ultra with the carbon doors does not have operating windows and hence has a little sliding window on the driver’s side of the car, another feature with which to identify an ultra.
15. Here one can also see the larger air intake more clearly. The new ultra has a much larger intake which has a much sharper apex corner compared to the older R8 LMS ultra
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16. Point 6 continued: Some of the Audi R8 LMS ultras have been seen running the new wider rear wing but using the more upright mountings similar to the older R8 LMS. In these photos the WRT car on the left is an ultra and has the new wing mounted on the older mountings. The Phoenix car on the right is also a new ultra but has the new rear wing and mountings. Here one can see the new ultra mountings have a more curved design and reach further rearwards and hold the wing in a lower vertical position than compared to the older R8 LMS mountings.
Click on the photo for larger image
17. Point 6 continued: The differences of the rear wings are difficult to see. This is a design drawing taken from a technical document about the new R8 LMS ultra (Link to this document bellow). It clearly shows the difference between the old rear wings, rear wing mounting and rear wing position. The yellow wing is the older R8 LMS rear wing, note that the rear wing is narrower and that the mountings for the wing are more forward and upright. The blue wing is the new wider R8 LMS ultra rear wing. Note the new mountings here are lower and reach further rearwards than compared to the older R8 LMS.
There are many differences under the skin of the new Audi R8 LMS ultra including revised carbon doors, new layouts to the cooling system etc. The above “tutorial” gives one the ability to at least visually distinguish between the cars. For some more information regarding the technical aspects of the ultra have a look at this great link to a gallery hosted at the J-Fly R8 LMS teams' Facebook page which shows a technical document of the ultra, see it HERE
The Photos are by:
Fabian Wiedl
Norbert Kratz
NovaDriver
Christian Mamerow
More Information:
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