Friday, June 1, 2012

Audi RS5 to challenge Mugello and weight penalty at Superstars Series round 4


By Tarek Ramchani

The Superstars Series is at the Mugello circuit this weekend for round 4. The Audi squad has dominated the previous two rounds at Imola and Donington Park with the Audi RS5 quattro. Four straight race wins has been seen as “too much” domination by the series organizers.

Again three Audi RS5 cars will be fielded. Audi Sport Italia with driver Gianni Morbidelli was the strongest in Britain with pole and double race victories. The two time series champion will look forward to do well and chase for the series points lead. KMS Motorsport with Johan Kristoffersson is leading the overall championship table. The young Swedish ace did a perfect job at Donington with double second place finishs and will fight to keep his points lead this weekend. The third car will come from MTM Motorsport and their young and improving German driver Thomas Schoeffler. In Britain the 18-year old driver qualified in a very strong second but was really unlucky in both races.

The Audis were fully dominant during the last two rounds. Perhaps too much for the championship organizers. The Audi RS5 will have to face no less than a 100 kg of extra weight and an air restrictor. The Mugello circuit with its up hills and down hills will be a real challenge for the RS5 quattro and the drivers will have to push really hard to fight on track with the penalties. Audi has been penalized and the rivals will enjoy reduced weight and restrictions. The Superstars Series being a performance balanced series has proceeded with this move in order to balance the performances of the cars and bring equal chances between the different bands to ensure close racing.

Both races are set for Sunday. The Audi teams are now penalized for their strong performances in the opening stages of the season. However, despite the penalties the RS5 will be among the big favorites for race victories.

More information:
Audi SportItalia official Facebook

KMS Motorsport - Audi RS5
MTM Motorsport - Audi RS5