GRAND AM GT
that number now. Selling cars is one point, but you also have to get the support, and this is also what we have built up with Brad in America. More cars becomes more difficult to support, so we committed to a maximum four cars for this year, at least into the middle of the season. If everything is working fine with the customer support business and everything is working fine [with the cars] then we can think about bringing another one or two cars. The first thing, though, is to stabilise the situation on every point. That’s the idea behind this.’
Audi has turned to one of its former LMP1 engineers, Brad Kettler, to organise a soft introduction into Grand Am with the Audi R8. The plan is to build a maximum of four cars, regardless of demand, and build the support network
options to choose from until the series strikes the competitive balance it desires. ‘We had to reduce the power
a lot, and had to make a new database for Grand-Am so [the engine] would be roughly around 450bhp,’ said Liebchen of the big V10 that revs to 8600rpm. ‘With different restrictor sizes, we can adjust the power from 450 up to 500[bhp] without any modification on the ECU. There’s no electronic work to do on the car [to achieve that].’ Compared to some of the
used Rolex GT cars that trade at roughly half the price of a new Grand-Am-spec GT3 car, the R8, as Liebchen shares, provides cost savings in other areas to help justify the higher purchase price: ‘At the moment, our proposal is to make the big engine rebuild after 20,000kms, but we have an engine that has run for more than 30,000kms now. It is really one of our biggest advantages – the mileage and the running cost of the engine. I think they are the lowest you can find. I can give you an example with what we did this year with our factory cars – we raced in the VLN [at the Nürburgring] ahead of the Nürburgring 24 Hours, then we tested at Spa, competed in the Spa 24 Hours, brought the cars to
The Audi V10 revs to 8600rpm, but had to be de-tuned via the ECU to 450bhp. Now, using restrictors, it can be altered between 450 and 500bhp
Sepang and also competed in the six hours at Zhuhai. Same engine. No rebuilds. We like that you buy this racecar and can forget about things like this.’
CUSTOMER SUPPORT Although Ferrari has a well- established sales and support network for its customer racecars in North America, Liebchen and his Audi counterparts will need to create a new programme for its R8 Grand-Am clients. Indiana-based Brad Kettler, who continues to serve as one of
Audi Sport’s LMP1 engineers, will spearhead that new support initiative through his Kettler Motor Werks outfit. Audi’s soft introduction
into Grand-Am for 2012 was intentional, according to Liebchen, as the manufacturer set modest goals for the marketplace while it builds its new GT support infrastructure with Kettler. ‘I told everybody that we will build four cars and that’s what we are doing, even if there is more customer interest,’ explains Liebchen. ‘We’ve reached
“The European cars have all the driver aids. Ours don’t”
24
www.racecar-engineering.com • February 2012
FURTHER INTEREST While Michelotto and Audi continue to work on becoming major players in Grand-Am, Raffauf ended the conversation by confirming rumours of a few more GT3 manufacturers that could be seen Stateside in the near future: ‘We’ve talked to Mercedes and we’ve got a running dialogue with Lotus on the Evora. We’ve also had a good dialogue with BMW on their Z4, and are also all set to dialogue with Reiter, who do the Lamborghinis, which use the same engines as Audi. The [Mercedes] SLS GT3 is a bigger technical problem because the car is heavy, really heavy, [though] it’s got a lot of power. We have a bit of an issue with the fact that we run at Daytona and Homestead and require a very specific kind of tyre, which has a very specific maximum load. To get that power evenly reduced with the weight could be kind of close to the edge of where we are. We aren’t really interested in developing structurally a whole different tyre to hold up a heavier car in the banking there. ‘I think there’s a practical limit
to how many customers you can expect to have, but having new models for people to get involved allows some people with manufacturer alliances to move up. We loved the new McLaren too, but we’ve always said that once we start getting into composite GT chassis, that’s where we draw the line. I’d look at the R8 and F458 and say those are the kinds of cars we could see more of in the future…’
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