36th ADAC Zurich 24h-race: Subaru Impreza WRX STI NBR

With Subaru's announcement of running the GRB chassis at the Greece Rally next week, the new GRB STI will actually be seeing some action before the rally at the 36th ADAC Zurich 24h-race at Nurburgring. As I am writing this, the race will be at about the half way mark with a little over 13 hours to go.


While most people usually will associate the Impreza with off road racing, the Subaru Impreza actually are being used in various circuit racing series outside NA such as the Super GT series, and has been racing in the Nurburgring 24 hour in 2005 and 2006 using the GD based Impreza WRX STI with the best result of a class 2nd and overall 14th in 2005.

The official news of Subaru's entry into this years ADAC Zurich 24h-race came in early April complete with a confirmed drivers lineup. Dubbing it the [SUBARU NBR CHALLENGE], the in house tuning department of Subaru (Subaru Technica International or STI) with be spearheading the project to create a EJ20 2.0 boxer engine and GRB chassis based machine for the SP6 class.

Confirmed drivers will include Toshihiro Yoshida, Hideshi Matsuda, Koji Matsuda (picture left) and last but not least, the Best Motoring usual, Kaoki Hattori (picture right).






Test Session in Japan:
[source: Subaru] ...Read more!

36th ADAC Zurich 24h-race at Nurburgring: Audi R8 Racing Project

Well Looks like for those of us hoping to see the AUDI R8 Racing Project Sport Auto in action in today's race will be massively disappointed as the AUDI R8 Racing Project Sport Auto machine will not be running in today's 36th ADAC Zurich 24h-race at Nurburgring, which is already 7 hours into it as I am writing this. What even more disappointing was the car even fail to qualify due to a practice accident that puts the car out of commission during the second practice session on Friday 5/23.

It is such a disappointment not only for the fans but especially for all the people that are involved in the project ever since it was announced back in January.











[source: sport-auto, bilstein] ...Read more!

An Icon Evolves (but can it win?): Subaru GRB Impreza WRC2008 to launch at Greece Rally

Finally.

It really has been a while since the first appearance of the WRC2001 with the GD chassis, which is still being used in the WRC2007 but obliviously went through some revisions every year. The GD chassis has won the Subaru WRC Team two driver championships, one by Richard Burns with the WRC2001 and one by Petter Solberg with the WRC2003.

However, no manufacturer title was won during the entire GD chassis era.


With the new GR "hatchback" chassis, SWRC is hoping to level the playing field with the likes of Citroen's C4 and Ford's Focus, which are both based on a hatchback chassis and has been trading race wins and championships with each other for a few years. With this new car, SWRC might finally be able to put themselves back to the top of the game and at the very least don't want to get run over by newer teams such as the Suzuki and possibly the rumored 2009 return of their long time old rival Mitsubishi.

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official Press Release:

20/5/2008

Impreza WRC2008 to launch in Greece

The Subaru World Rally Team and STi are pleased to announce the launch date of the Impreza WRC2008. The most radically different Subaru World Rally Car in 15 years, the WRC2008 is ready to make its debut on the seventh round of this year’s World Rally Championship, the Acropolis Rally of Greece, from 29 May – 1 June.

The event will be marked by an official launch in Greece on the evening of Wednesday 28 May, prior to the start of the rally.

The new car is based on the latest road going Subaru Impreza which was introduced in June 2007. Although featuring radically new styling the Impreza WRC2008 retains the well proven Subaru horizontally-opposed turbocharged engine combined with Symmetrical All Wheel Drive. The WRC2008 will also sport a dramatic new livery created around the Subaru corporate identity but at the same time preserving the iconic blue identity familiar to rally fans worldwide.

“We are very excited to be able to launch the all-new Impreza WRC2008 ahead of schedule” said David Richards, Subaru World Rally Team principal. “It is testament to the dedication and commitment of the team behind the scenes in the UK and at STi in Japan. Just as the latest Impreza road car represents a new era for Subaru so the WRC2008 represents a new era for all of us at the Subaru World Rally Team and I am confident that we will arrive in Greece able to fight competitively.”

The team’s objective has always been to launch the WRC2008 as soon as the testing confirmed that good steps forward in overall performance had been made. We are confident that introducing the car in Greece will enable the team to be highly competitive in the second half of the season and give Petter and Chris the best opportunity to win in 2008.

A new area of the team’s website has been launched to coincide with the official unveiling, counting down to the actual launch and heralding the team’s new era whilst celebrating the Impreza’s remarkable heritage at the forefront of world rallying. At the time of the official launch on 28 May, the site will be updated with more information on the WRC2008 including facts & figures and interviews with key team personnel.

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[source: Prodrive] ...Read more!

36th ADAC Zurich 24h-race at Nurburgring: Lexus LF-A

The Lexus LF-A has been raising eyebrows ever since the concept version debuted at the 2005 North American International Auto Show. However what raises even more eyebrows about this car is Lexus's decision to enter a race version (more or less) of the machine running in the SP8 class of the 36th ADAC Zurich 24h-race at Nurburgring on 5/22~25 (race starts in 15 hours as I am writing this...). See their official press release here.

On May 10, the Lexus team actually entered the LF-A to the ADAC Rundstrecken-Trophy as a prep race for todays 24h-race at Nurburgring, which they won by 2 laps! See below for some of the highlights.

No matter if their decision is to use the event to aid the development of the production unit or not, it is for sure a very effective PR tool to market their cars; and this is starting to be a trend as Volkswagon also entered their Scirocco into the race (SP3T class) before the cars goes on sale later this year.


The Lexus LF-A qualified 27th overall and ranked 5th in the SP8 class trailing the class top qualifier, the Porsche 911, by 55 seconds.







[source: Lexus, Minkara, Endurance-info] ...Read more!

2008 Le Mans Preview: Aston Martin Racing

(pre-season group testing)

With their pre-season testing of AMR's Le Mans DBR9 machine (completely deck out in classic GULF livery) done back in March and having their driver lined up for the event in about 3 weeks time. Aston Martin Racing is as ready as a racing team can get to defend their 2007 GT1 title, won by beating their equally matched rival C6R of Corvette Racing.


To give you an idea of how closely matched these machines are, their 2007 qualifying time are less than 0.3 seconds of each other. That is between two highly developed racing machine that not only needs to have the speed to win the race, but more importantly the reliability to last for the entire 24hrs.

The confirmed drivers for Aston Martin Racing will include last years winners David Barbham (UK), Darren Turner (UK) and will be joined by Antino Garcia (Spain) piloting last years class winning machine the "009" DBR9. The second car, "007" DBR9, will be piloted by Heinz-Harald Frentzen (Germany), Andrea Piccini (Italy) and Karl Wendlinger (Austria).

Looks like the GT1 class of the 76th Le Mans will be another tug of war blood bath between the UK and the USA. The 76th Le Mans with begin on June 14th with the official test day taking place on June 1st.

More group testing photos:




[source: Aston Martin] ...Read more!