Audi Settled With Evo II But Concerned by BMW Pace

Audi Sport’s head of customer racing Chris Reinke feels the newly updated Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II is in good shape ahead of its first Nürburgring 24 but has expressed concern about the pace of BMW’s new GT3 car.

The Ingolstadt marque’s new-for-2022 GT3 challenger will be making its first appearance in the Eifel classic, with two full-factory entries from Phoenix Racing and Car Collection Racing supported by five additional customer cars.

The N24 will be the first 24-hour race for the updated Audi since its global introduction to customer teams, having done the 24H Barcelona in pre-homologation trim last year.

Reinke said that the Evo II package has achieved Audi’s goal of including the performance for both professional and gentleman drivers, which has allowed it to take a step forward with its GT3 offering.

“I think in general, not just on the Nordschleife, we see that our customer field is quite together, which tells you that the car should be on a very high level of performance for all for different levels of talents of drivers,” Reinke told Sportscar365.

“This is exactly what customer racing should be all about, and also what the aim for the Evo II was targeted at.

“We experience the same thing here at the Nordschleife. It seems to be quite a step forward on driveability.

“We’re very happy that this step is now confirmed by customers, by gentleman drivers, by all sorts of driver levels, which is very important for a sustainable customer racing product.”

While Reinke is content with the position of Audi’s own car, he expressed dissatisfaction over the pace deficit to BMW’s new GT3 challenger.

The BMW M4 GT3, which like the Audi Evo II was introduced for the 2022 season, set the pace across both qualifying practice sessions on Thursday.

“What is going on here at the moment cannot be satisfying for anyone but BMW,” Reinke spoke.

“We have seen [that] throughout the last races and we have seen quite conservative reactions by the legislative body.

“So for the moment being, we don’t think we are race-ready on the BoP side.”

Head of BMW M Motorsport Andreas Roos said that the manufacturer has been happy with its car’s integration into the Nürburgring BoP process and that its teams have been “showing what the car can do” from the beginning of the season.

“I think this helps the guys who do the BoP to know and judge what the car is able to do,” Roos told Sportscar365.

“This, at the end, is a transparent and open discussion that we’ve had.

“We have the philosophy that we run our car like we race our car.

“This also helps with the preparation. We know what the car is doing technically. This is the best way to prepare for the 24-hour race.”

Audi received a 10 kg weight break in the BoP coming into the N24 weekend, but Reinke suggested that this was “unlikely to overcome the performance advantage.”

Audi Weather-Watching Ahead of N24

Reinke also spoke of the weather forecast heading into the 50th edition of the race, with the chances of rain and cold temperatures on race day increasing.

With Audi Sport only having two full-factory entries, the result of poor weather causing issues for one of the cars would have a greater impact compared to some of the other marques, which have more factory-backed cars on the grid.

“I think Thursday morning we saw for the complete weekend the weather forecast was below 50 percent [chance] for rain. For right now, I think it is on 60 or 70 percent so it did increase,” said Reinke.

“We have a well-balanced car with a very experienced lineup, so usually it should suit us.

“On the other side, we have only two strategic entries compared to our competition with full-pro lineups.

“So risky conditions could also have [downsides] for us.

“In the past, I wouldn’t have minded changing conditions but I think today we would like it to stay stable.”

Daniel Lloyd contributed to this report