Nother CarGuy

Audi Sport chose this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed to reveal the new R8 LMS GT2 race car, which is set to compete in the new GT2 class from 2020 on. The new version of the Audi R8 is the most powerful customer race car ever offered by Audi Sport, with the naturally aspirated 5.2-liter V10 engine producing 630hp (470kW), mainly thanks to its new exhaust system. With the new R8 LMS GT2, Audi joins Porsche as the second manufacturer to commit to the GT2 Class, which aims to fill the gap between the existing GT3 and GT4 classes. GT2 race cars are designed to offer less downforce than the GT3 cars and are scheduled to make their racing debut in Europe and North America next year. The new Audi R8 LMS GT2 comes with a significantly wider bodywork than the production R8, featuring a new front bumper, a huge rear wing and a roof-mounted air intake for the engine. Audi says that around 55 percent of their new GT2 racer is shared with the road-legal R8. “The Audi R8 LMS GT2 ...

Porsche has confirmed that the upcoming 911 GT2 RS won’t get a manual transmission despite a stick shift recently being introduced for the facelifted GT3. During an interview at the Geneva Motor Show, Porsche chief executive Oliver Blume remained quite tight-lipped about the model and simply said that a new “GT2” is in the works. “In the past it was a very famous model of the 911, and maybe in the future we will have a GT2 as well. For the GT2 it’s very typical to have big power combined with the turbo engine. Today we can’t talk about the power, but when we launch the car I think you will see at which level we can get to with the car. And we’re still working at it,” he told Car Advice. Porsche may not be referring to the model as the GT2 RS but sources indicate that it will be so ballistic that the ‘regular’ GT2 model will be skipped entirely. With power coming from a twin-turbocharged flat-six delivering up to 650 hp, it’s easy to understand why. Given that the GT2 RS will...