With less than three weeks before the first round at Silverstone, Audi Sport Team Joest has confirmed its driver lineups for the inaugural Intercontinental Le Mans Cup. The 2010 Le Mans winners have entrusted a mix of drivers to pilot its two Audi R15 plus TDIs in the three-round championship which kicks off on Sept. 12 at the famed British circuit.

Eight-time Le Mans winner Tom Kristensen and Allan McNish spearhead the driving strength, as the pair will share the wheel of the No. 7 Audi in all three races. Dindo Capello and TImo Bernhard will pilot the No. 8 entry at Silverstone.

Capello rejoins Kristensen and McNish in the No. 7 car for a three-driver lineup at the American Le Mans Series season-ending Petit Le Mans on Oct. 2. Audi’s sister car will feature the strength of Marcel Fassler, Andre Lotterer and Benoit Treluyer, the same trio that recorded a second place result at Le Mans.

The No. 7 Audi will again be piloted by Kristensen and McNish in the third and final round in Zhuhai, China on Nov. 7. For this round, Capello will again move over to the No. 8 machine but will be paired with Frenchman Romain Dumas.

Eight of Audi’s nine drivers will compete in at least one of the three rounds, with the only omission being Mike Rockenfeller, who teamed with Bernhard and Dumas to win this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans for the German brand.

“Because there’s only a make and team but no driver classification we’re using the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup as an opportunity to integrate the drivers who haven’t competed for us very often, even better with our team,” said Head of Audi Motorsport Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich. “Our aim is to compete at Le Mans in 2011 with the same drivers as this year.”

Audi Sport Team Joest Driver Lineups:

1000 Kilometers Silverstone (GB), Sept. 12
No. 7 Tom Kristensen (DK)/Allan McNish (GB)
No. 8 Timo Bernhard (D)/Dindo Capello (I)

Petit Le Mans, Road Atlanta (USA), Oct. 2
No. 7 Dindo Capello (I)/Tom Kristensen (DK)/Allan McNish (GB)
No. 9 Marcel Fässler (CH)/André Lotterer (D)/Benoît Treluyer (F)

6 Hours of Zhuhai (CN), Nov. 7
No. 7 Tom Kristensen (DK)/Allan McNish (GB)
No. 8 Dindo Capello (I)/Romain Dumas (F)

Beeing based in japan and racing for Audi Sport in addition to my GT and formula Nippon program with Toyota, it only makes sense to have a relationship with Audi Japan. Very friendly team and always up for some nice top events!

Rencently, Mr Boesch, the president of audi Japan had a bye bye party at the Conrad Hotel. He will transfer to China and a party has been held for him where I was invited wth some other famous Audi ambassadors.

Last week I picked up my new car, the Super fast Audi TT RS. I love that little car! Sound is awesome! A true addiction, Audi music! Plus its a 6 speed manual gearbox with handbrake, I might throw in some drifts… Tokyo, watch out!!….

340 HP

2,5 L  5 cylinder, turbocharged

1450 Kg

4.3 Kg per Bhp!!

The TT RS Coupé rockets from 0 to 100 km/h in 4.6 seconds. Top speed of  280 km/h.

Maximum torque of 450 Nm (331.90 lb.-ft.) is always available between 1,600 and 5,300 rpm.

today we mainly had our drivers briefing and a meeting with the team crew to teach us how to fix the car in case we have trouble out on the track… so my tuning work with putting the hands on to my Subaru was worth something… Mechanics skills improved… but hopefully not needed off course.

We also had our first media appearance in our big hospi for the journalists to meet us, did a couple interviews for tv and mags. After that we went around the track by bicycle to check out the course and some little modifications to last year. Marcel made sure he stayed powered up with red bull…

We then finished the day with a 1h30 autograph session in front of the pits and a welcome drink invitation from the race organizers.

Tomorrow we get to drive for the first time and we will have a better idea of where we are against the Peugeots…

Mr. Le Mans, aka Tom Kristensen found a new job behind the bar and served me some juice and Alan found his bigger twin brother…

Ben recieved his new night vision glasses…

on a picture from yesterday you can see our present from our big japanese fans, they made us a very nice supporters flag with lots of wishes! Arigato to Japan!

Day 1, arrived well at Le Mans with my S5 on sunday night.

Started the day with greating the hole team, takes a while as we have a LOT of people… Everybody is well prepared with everything, looking good.

The pits look stunning, you can’t see any bit of the wall or construction from the building, its all nicely covered with panels. We even have a built in car lift in the floor for each car, a first for me…

We got the keys for our drivers containers to put all our gear and also sleep  during the race. we took some time to make it all nice and organized but Ben still manged to loose his keys…

Our team hospi is the coolest of the paddock coming straight from F1 with the RED BULL energy station.

After that we made our way to the traditional “place des jacobins” in Le Mans city center where the technical inspection and drivers equipments, license check is done but also where the yearly picture with the hole team and media interviews are held.

Finally, to not feel to remote from my habits… a sushi dinner with my team mates and team members to finish of the day…

Right after Spa we all went to some lost place in east Germany to prepare Le Mans with some more pitstop practice and simulations etc,…  Busy busy but good to be with the team!

Also got to try the R8 LMS  which was fun!

Our fans from japan prepared a flag for Ben and me to support us for our highlight in Le Mans. We displayed it our garage. Allan Mc Nish got jealous and requested one to….

So nice! Arigatooo!

Super GT race in Fuji is done and now I’m back home in Belgium getting ready for this week end’s race, the  1000km of SPA Le Mans series.

It will be my first race race with Audi Sport at a circuit I can call my home track, I raced there only twice but the track is just 1h away from where I grew up and I have been going there so many times since I was a little kid, my father had a race team and he always took me there with him. I was playing around the hole area with the team’s quad bike. Lots of great memories as a kid around Belgium’s nicest country side, the Ardennes. Later on, even my Go-Kart engine tuner (Marechal Racing) was also based inside the circuit on a little Go-Kart track, so I went there to practice a lot to. Anyways, all that to say that it’s special for me and I’m very exited to race this week end.

Check it out, my new car got delivered so I’ll even roll up there in style… Audi S5

FOLLOW THE RACE

The 1,000Km of Spa are scheduled to start at 11:30 am on Sunday, May 9.

Visit www.lemans-series.com for live-timing

TV Broadcast times: ● Eurosport International – Live 11:15 am – 12:00 pm; 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm

 Eurosport International – Delayed 5:30 pm – 6:00 pm

Also check out the Audi Sport Iphone Application, great to follow news and lots of multimedia in it, pretty cool!

Click pic to link to Itunes store, its free!

4 comments

Driver change practice and some fun in France!