Hollywood stars in the pits, the new Audi TT RS on the race track, Mattias Ekström in the rallycross Audi and many other thrilling moments: off the race track, there was a lot going on at the Le Mans 24 Hours as well.
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Jason Statham is a guest of Audi’s at Le Mans
A touch of Hollywood at Le Mans: In the garage of Audi Sport Team Joest, action hero Jason Statham was on hand for the the start of the Le Mans 24 Hours for which Brad Pitt officially waved the flag. The night before, Keanu Reeves had received an exclusive tour of the Audi garage by Le Mans record winner Tom Kristensen. Other guests of Audi’s watching the 84th running of the iconic French endurance race included actors Mathieu Kassovitz and Riccardo Scamarico, actress Valeria Solarino, American acotor Brad Pitt and singer Andreas Bourani.
Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich (Head of Audi Sport), André Lotterer, Marcel Fässler, Brad Pitt, Dr.-Ing. Stefan Knirsch
Adrien Tambay took a brief trip to Le Mans on Thursday to wish his fellow drivers from the WEC good luck for the race and to gather a few current impressions himself. At a Le Mans event held this weekend at the newly opened Audi City Paris on Place du Marché St-Honoré, he shared them with the guests there, as did Nico Müller, Edoardo Mortara and Mike Rockenfeller at the Audi Cities in Berlin, Beijing and Moscow.
The UEFA European Championship was a hot topic at Le Mans too. André Lotterer together with most of the mechanics of Audi Sport Team Joest kept his fingers crossed for the German team in the match against Poland. During the numerous interruptions of the qualifying session on Thursday the opportunity to watch the match live on television for a few minutes behind the garage even presented itself.
Benoît Treluyer and Loïc Duval previously witnessed the 2-0 victory of their Équipe Tricolore against Albania on Wednesday and Marcel Fässler was watching his compatriots play against Romania in the match that ended in a 1-1 draw.
Oliver Jarvis, Jason Statham, Lucas di Grassi, Marcel Fässler, Benoît Tréluyer
In 2007, Mattias Ekström was driving an Audi R10 TDI on the test day at Le Mans. In 2008, he won the DTM race at Circuit Bugatti. Now the Swede returned to Le Mans with a new mission. During the 24-hour race he took guests for a ride in his near-600-hp Audi S1 EKS RX quattro from the FIA World Rallycross Championship. “Anyone who’s ever been a passenger in our S1 knows why our hashtag is #welovequattro,” says Ekström.
A new experience for Tom Kristensen: The record winner of the Le Mans 24 Hours for the first time served as an expert to the television channel Eurosport in the pit lane at the classic French endurance race. Beyond this commitment “Tom K.,” as usual, had an extremely busy schedule at Le Mans again.