As Audi rethinks its position on electric and internal combustion strategies, it appears to be fast-tracking a replacement to the R8 based on the Lamborghini Temerario. The news comes from a story this week in Autocar Magazine and was covered in-depth in another story on ooooIYKYK (HERE), though there was one part I wanted to highlight in a different story.
It was just one paragraph, the second-to-last, in a two-page spread and it may have gone unmissed. My story was already long, so why risk the same in my own story on the subject. I’m calling it out because it’s news inwhich I think Audi afficionados will revel.
It reads:
“Autocar understands that another key factor (in the R8’s alleged 2027 return) is Audi’s push to develop FIA-homologated iterations of the new R8 to once again spearhead the brand’s involvement in key endurance events such as the Nürburgring 24 Hours.”
BOOOOM!!!! That’s big news. Audi Sport customer racing’s demise in these years leading up to F1 has been on the minds of anyone impassioned by the four rings. At one time, alongside its incredibly expensive LMP1 program, the brand homologated entries for no less than the FIA’s GT2, GT3, GT4 and TCR classes of racing. Some of these are still racing and their homologation remains good for now, but by 2027 they’ll likely all be obsolete. Customer racing was an important part of the R8 production car program from the very outset, and part of Audi’s rich tradition of emphasizing and inspiring the up-and-coming.
Customer racing programs will never get the media impressions of an F1 team. Hell, there was a study during Volkswagen Group’s peak racing era fielding multiple LMP1 programs, a WRC program and customer programs throughout the group, and while they netted several championships including outright in the FIA WEC and WRC programs, they still didn’t get the same amount of media impressions as the Mercedes F1 program… and this was BEFORE Drive to Survive went wild on Netflix. As measured by media impressions alone, lesser racing programs just don’t pencil. The problem is, marketing executives who don’t have instinct bump their way through the dark as measured by media impressions while at the same time these programs still inspire in ways the ultra-exclusive and polished F1 cannot.
Presumably, a new R8 racing program would start with GT3 just as the first car did. That would make sense, placing the R8 on the grid at Nürburgring as Autocar suggested… and Spa, Daytona, Sebring, Mount Panorama and possibly even Le Mans vying for a class win. To that, I think I can say for everyone, bring it on!
