Miami-based Dion von Moltke is aiming to put Audi in the winner’s circle in this year’s newly-created Tudor United SportsCar Championship. Here in the first of a number of interviews for DSC, the 23-year-old American reflects upon the opening Daytona 24 hours and looks ahead to the Sebring 12 Hours
“I started karting when I was 13-years-old and did that for about four years before attending the Skip Barber Racing School. I had to make the decision between ‘open wheel’ formula cars, NASCAR or sports car racing. I didn’t have millions of dollars to get into Formula 1 or IndyCar, I wasn’t a big fan of NASCAR at the time and so it was a clear and easy choice to go into sports cars.
“After karting I raced in the Continental Sportscar Challenge (early days above in the APR VW Golf GTI in 2009) and subsequently competed in the American Le Mans Series and Grand-Am (seen below in the APR Motorsport Audi R8 LMS at Lime Rock in 2012.
In 2014 I’m with Flying Lizard Motorsports racing an Audi R8 LMS in the new Tudor United SportsCar Championship.
“The high energy levels and work rate I put in haven’t changed. I’m still very hungry, I’m not where I want to be yet. I’ve progressed but want to go further – ideally racing for Audi at Le Mans – that would be a dream. I’m hoping to race in Europe while Bathurst would also be a great race to do. I’m progressing down the right path but there is still a lot more work to be done.
“The R8 LMS is a great car and it has a lot of technical support from Audi Sport’s ‘customer racing’ technicians including Brad Kettler, a familiar face with the Audi Sport Team Joest at Le Mans and who heads up the North American ‘customer’ racing operation in terms of service and parts supply.
“Together with Felipe Albuquerque, Oliver Jarvis and Edoardo Mortara, we won the GT class in the Daytona 24 Hours last year and I strongly believe the car could have gone on to win the Grand-Am championship.
“This year the R8 races in the GTD class. The competition is a lot tougher but I believe we have what we need in place to go and battle for the championship title.
“Some electronic issues frustrated us in practice and qualifying at Daytona last month but these were solved for the race. I had only done three laps before qualifying and hadn’t even used new tyres until ‘qually’. P20 was definitely not where we wanted to be, we lacked outright speed, but nevertheless felt we had a good car for the 24 hours especially considering tyre wear.
“Our plan all along was just to survive the night and when the sun came up on Sunday morning I think we were three laps down. We weren’t panicking because at Daytona, the way that the full course caution flags work, a car can make up a lot of laps, and we started to push more.
“We got back two laps during the morning and just needed a little bit of luck in the last 90mins with yellow flags which didn’t quite roll our way but we were really happy to end up with fifth place – the ‘sister’ Flying Lizard Audi running a slightly different set-up to our car, just missing out on a GTD class win.
“Good team work and strategy plus no mistakes from all four drivers, Seth [Neiman], Alessandro [Latif], Felipe [Albuquerque] and myself enabled us to salvage a decent result. It was the first race for the team with these brand new R8 sports cars so a very close second and a fifth place was pretty impressive out of the box.
“2014 is the first time since my karting days when I was 17 that I have remained with the same team for back-to-back seasons for a full season. So its really nice not have to learn a new engineer or new team and remember new names. I’d loved working with Audi at Daytona 12 months earlier and to be back in the R8 again was a superb feeling even if we couldn’t match to win our class like 12 months earlier.
“Next on the TUSC calendar is the Sebring 12 Hours on Saturday 15 March. I complete a two-day test later this month at the bumpy Florida track. The Sebring track is very different to the silky smooth Daytona circuit and is maybe one of the most unique places and tracks we will race at in North America.
“This will be my fourth Sebring 12 Hours. I’ve had two wins in a row (below pictured aboard the GTC class winning AJR Porsche from 2013) there so am determined to make it a third for Audi at a track that since 1999 has become especially successful for the Four Rings brand with its sports-prototypes.
“My regular all-season co-driver is Seth [Neiman]. It’s a learning year for everyone but our sights are on the championship. Flying Lizards are used to winning championships, they have been a very successful.
“The Audi R8 LMS will be racing at Sebring for the first time but I believe it will be suited for this track. It’s a circuit where braking and traction exiting corners are very important and those are two things that the Audi does really well. Meanwhile Flying Lizards have run the 12 hour a ton of times, they know how it goes and know the game.
“The season is going to be fantastic and there’s some pretty hallmark race tracks later in the year too. My favourite track is Road Atlanta. “Petit Le Mans” is an amazing event with great energy and the race track is just mega. But for now it’s time to fully focus on Sebring.”
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