In the world of racing, organizers are usually tasked with ensuring a level playing field between competitors. Even if the cars are closely monitored and inspected by the facilitators there is still a fair amount of room for gaining an advantage- whether it comes in the form of experience, or simply teams that have more money to spend on development and training.
Four seasons in, the Audi R8 LMS Cup sees some new changes to the rule and regulations. These changes are made to balance the teams, mostly in terms of driver advantage. Like most Cup races, there are a mix of gentlemen and professional drivers. And also like most Cup series, the weight of the driver and equipment can play a large part in the times achieved: on track, even a tenth of a second matters.
There will be up to 22 entrants who will fight in 2 sprint races across the 6 weekends of the Cup. This isn’t so much a variation as there is to the qualifying rules; the top 8 drivers in qualifying will re-qualify on a time-attack style basis. Ballast is installed to bring the total weight of driver and equipment up to a requisite 80 kilograms.
When it comes to starts, instead of the two rolling starts as before there will now be one standing start and one rolling start across each race weekend. Launch control is installed to help with this standing start, and aerodynamics a well as braking systems have been improved to provide greater control for the drivers.
Tyre management has also greater flexibility with this season as teams are offered two tyre sets for qualifying and racing. The introduction of the push-to-pass system also allows for better, closer dogfighting when it comes down to the wire- which should prove to be more entertaining for race fans. To level the playing field further, the top three drivers in each race will start the next with extra ballast- a handicap of sorts.
This year’s R8 LMS Cup is likely to be the last with this generation of R8 model. Next year, we will probably see the introduction of the all new Audi R8 LMS, and with it even more features and modifications.
