The opening round of Audi’s new one-make championship, the Audi Sport TT Cup, will take place this weekend, supporting the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters at Hockenheim.
After twelve months of preparation, the series is ready to start, and this weekend will form part of the DTM ‘Festival’, with race one on Saturday morning, and race two on Sunday morning, both 30 minutes long. There will be 18 permanent entrants in identical Audi TTs, as well as 6 guest drivers on the grid.
The teams and drivers have already simulated a race day on Hockenheim’s short configuration, consisting of practice, qualifying and a ‘race’.
Another thing that makes this championship special is that all cars are prepared by Audi, and so the drivers’ skills are more important than ever.
“Our participants from 13 nations again proved their professionalism that day,” says Rolf Michl, Project Leader of Audi Sport TT Cup. “The final tests went smoothly and now we are even more excited about starting to race.”
The six guest drivers for this weekend will be: former German ski-jumper Sven Hannawald, American Rallycross driver Tanner Foust, Finnish Rallycross driver Toomas Heikkinen, and three journalists.
The 18 permanent season entries consist of young drivers (with an average age of 20) from 13 different countries. The season will have 6 weekends, all at DTM events, and will race at Hockenheim twice, Norising, Red Bull Ring, Oschersleben and Nürburgring.
The race weekend started yesterday with free practice, and qualifying was today. Race one will start at 10:10 local time on Saturday, with race 2 on Sunday morning at 9:40. Both are available to watch on www.audi-motorsport.com.
