Audi’s R8 GRAND-AM Looks to Contend for 2013 Rolex Series Title

Audi has few peers in the world of championship sports car racing. In the past season, however, the manufacturer’s R8 GRAND-AM was very much a rookie in the GRAND-AM Rolex Series GT category. APR Motorsport’s No. 51 team struggled through much of the campaign failing to post a top-10 finish until August’s race at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal . The organization, however, closed out 2012 with a second-place finish at Lime Rock Park suggesting the team should be a contender beginning with next January’s Rolex 24 At Daytona.

Driver Dion von Moltke believes that will happen.

“After the strong end to the season, I know this car is capable of a run at the championship in 2013,” said von Moltke, a 22-year-old Texas native. “Finishing the 2012 Rolex 24 was a special experience and a great start but we will all be heading back next year with higher ambitions.”

APR LLC specializes in providing high-quality and highly-engineered aftermarket performance products available for Porsche, Audi and Volkswagen vehicles. The organization, with success in the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge, was a natural fit for Audi’s entrance into Rolex Series GT competition.

Von Moltke won three CTSCC ST races with APR in 2009 and has competed as a Daytona Prototype driver as well.

“To be a part of the first season for Audi and APR Motorsport was truly a special experience for me,” he said. “I knew that APR had formed a very hard working team right away and they showed their perseverance and determination to work through the night to get us to the finish line at the Rolex 24.

Von Moltke and his four co-drivers, who included Dr. Jim Norman, Monticello Motor Club Rookie of the Year, finished unspectacularly – 31st in class, 44th overall – but they finished. A humble beginning, yes, but APR had a baseline on which to build.

“As a team the hardest but most important component we needed to build was communication,” said von Moltke. “With a new team, new engineers and new drivers we all worked in different ways at the beginning of the season but as each race went by we started to learn about each other as well as about our car.”

The team progressed to top 15 finishes and cracked the top 10 in Canada. Although the team finished 12th in the season’s next-to-final event, von Moltke felt the Audi had become a contender.

“The point that I knew we were finally on the same page was at the penultimate round of the championship at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca,” he said. “Throughout the whole weekend the team as a whole was of one mindset and on the same page. I remember thinking at the end of the race that we were definitely getting close to breaking through.”

Lime Rock’s success was surprising to some – but not von Moltke. Communication between drivers and engineer Mark Scott reached an unprecedented level. Von Moltke said the car got better and better as the race progressed, especially in the final 25 minutes.

“With a combination of a good team like APR Motorsport and a great car company in Audi, I know they will be competing for wins every weekend,” he said.