Class victory and further customer successes for Audi Sport at Spa

A total of eleven customer drivers from Audi Sport customer racing’s private teams return from Belgium with a trophy: Benjamin Goethe/Thomas Neubauer/Jean-Baptiste Simmenauer in Team WRT’s Audi R8 LMS won the Silver Cup at the Spa 24 Hours. Second place went to Alex Aka/Juuso Puhakka/Nicolas Schöll/Marius Zug from Team Attempto Racing. And in the Gold Cup classification, Team WRT with Ulysse de Pauw/Arnold Robin/Maxim Robin/Ryuichiro Tomita finished second after a fight to catch up. Meanwhile, Audi Sport customer racing with its drivers and the Audi Sport squads proved its unbroken competitive spirit at the 74th edition of the endurance race after various setbacks.

From the start of the race, the number 30 Audi of Goethe/Neubauer/Simmenauer was one of the favorites in the Silver Cup. In the sixth hour of racing, the GT3 sports car of Team WRT replaced the Audi customer team Tresor by Car Collection at the top of this category. From the 16th hour of racing onwards, Team WRT and Attempto Racing, as Silver leaders, circled the seven-kilometer rollercoaster track in the Ardennes in formation. In the final phase, a three-way battle with Lamborghini offered thrilling sport in this class.

At the finish, Goethe, who has both German and Danish nationality, and his two French driver colleagues Thomas Neubauer and Jean-Baptiste Simmenauer had a 1.22-minute lead over Aka/Puhakka/Schöll/Zug. With 19 participants, the Silver Cup is the second strongest class in the field. The successful trio are now also championship leaders in the Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Endurance Silver Cup. “Congratulations to our customers from WRT and Attempto Racing on their fine results,” says Chris Reinke, Head of Audi Sport customer racing. “We are particularly pleased that this is not their first success this year. At the Dubai 24 Hours, Thomas Neubauer managed overall victory in January in an Audi ahead of Benjamin Goethe and Jean-Baptiste Simmenauer. We would have liked to have raced for our fifth overall victory at Spa with our Audi Sport teams as well but there were too many adversities this weekend. Still, a big thank you to everyone because they remained highly motivated until the end.”