Motorsport News
Special Audi R8s Are New Safety Car and Race Taxi in DTM
By source: Audi Sport
Jul 1, 2008, 14:55

EDITOR's NOTE:

With so many special R8s floating around, between V10 R8 videos online and cars rounding the Nurburgring, we're taking great interest in the cars Audi's been lending out to various racing series for their safety car fleets. We spotted one car bedecked with as-of-yet-unseen carbon fiber bits at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in June, and now we've found these photos of the Race Taxi used at last weekend's DTM race in Germany. The chin looks identical to the carbon piece on the Le Mans safety car, but the extended chin piece seen in some of these photos is new from what we can gather, as is the rear wing style spoiler. We did not attend the Norisring DTM race so only have the shots distributed by Audi Sport. If anyone finds more via the web, we'd love to see them.

Ingolstadt/Nürnberg – Double début at the Norisring in Nuremberg: This weekend, the Audi R8 will be used as the official DTM safety car for the first time – and as a racing taxi as well.


quattro GmbH, a wholly owned subsidiary of AUDI AG handed over two of the 420-hp mid-engine sports cars to the German Motorsport Association (DMSB) on the occasion of the "Norisring Speed Weekend”. The two Audi R8 cars were prepared specifically for use as safety cars by quattro GmbH at the Neckarsulm plant. "There were not many modifications required, though, because the R8 possesses the genes of a perfect sports car,” says Werner Frowein, managing director of quattro GmbH.

Another Audi R8 was carefully prepared by quattro GmbH for use as a racing taxi.

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