Audi race experience Team Joest will enter February's Bathurst 12 Hours with a star-studded international driver line-up and two Audi R8 LMS race cars. The race – at Australia's most iconic track – will mark the beginning of a busy year for Audi's customer racing program, now handled by quattro GmbH, following an off-season restructuring.
One of the GT3-spec cars will be crewed by an all Australian trio. Leading the team, at least in profile will be three time V8 Supercars champion Craig Lowndes, the veteran of Australia's premier Touring Car series has also won the 1000km race at the Bathurst track five times, including 2010. He will be joined by Warren Luff, another V8 Supercar driver with experience around the Mount Panorama track.
The crew will be completed by Mark Eddy, who already has a season behind the wheel of the R8 LMS after a year in the Australian GT Championship.
German's Marc Basseng and Christopher Mies, along with Darryl O'Young will share the second car. All three have experience in entering endurance races with the car, O'Young having driven for the Audi race experience Team Joest crew in August at the 12 hour race at Sepang where the team finished second. Later in the season he drove for Audi when the DTM visited Shanghai.
The Bathurst 12 Hour outing will be followed later in the year by the Audi R8 LMS competing in both the Nurburgring and Spa 24 Hours. The extended racing program also means more races for the Audi race experience team which, in 2010, focussed of the Nordschleife giving Audi customers a chance to race on the famous German track.
