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Autoblog's adventures at the Nurburgring 24-Hour race [spoilers]

The brand-new Audi R8 LMS, said to share 50 percent of its components with the street-legal R8 shown off at Geneva, has won its very first race at the 2015 Nurburgring 24-Hours. The No. 28 car driven by Christopher Mies, Edward Sandstrom, Nico Muller, and Laurens Vanthoor for the Audi Sport WRT team out of Belgium finished only 40.279 seconds ahead of the No. 25 BMW Sport Team Marc VDS Z4 GT3 in second place, for the smallest winning gap since the race began in 1970. Those two cars traded the lead throughout Sunday morning and were less than a minute away from one another for the last two hours. They were part of a total 35 lead changes during the entire race – a record for the event – and both did 156 laps. Third place went to the No. 44 Falken Tire Porsche 997 GT3, one lap down. The Audis did what they always do: lurked close to the front, stayed out of trouble, then pounced when everyone else faltered. For the opening stretches the BMW Z4 teams owned it, running 1-2-3 for a while, but all of them hit trouble. When morning came and the race got over its yellow-flag fever, the No. 28 Audi was in front and stayed there. It was the third Nurburgring 24-Hour win for Audi in four years, the brand's first win only coming in 2012. Last year's winner, the Phoenix Audi team that set a race record by doing 159 laps, had both of its cars retire. One hit an oil patch about 12 hours in, spun and was hit by another car behind, taking on too much damage to continue. The other retired with engine issues. Other Notes Three cars crashed out of the race while leading, after the rains that weren't supposed to happen, happened about 90 minutes in. The No. 20 Schubert BMW Z4 led the first 50 minutes of the race, hopped a crest at Pflanzgarten, landed in a pool of water, and hit the wall on the 30th lap. Then the No. 30 Frikadelli Porsche, with a driver team that included ex-'Ring Taxi driver Sabine Schmitz, hit the No. 31 Mercedes SLS AMG GT3 on the approach to Carrousel and crashed out. Then the No. 1 Phoenix Audi, last year's winning car, took the lead but hit the wall after that oil patch near Pflanzgarten and was out of the race. Aston Martin celebrated a class win in the SP8 category with the No. 49 Vantage GT4 N430. This being the tenth anniversary of the Vantage running the Nurburgring-24, this year's car was painted in the same colors as the racecar from ten years ago.

Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, and Audi announce Takata recalls

Daimler, Volkswagen, and Audi will recall nearly 1.7 million total vehicles in the US to replace their Takata airbag inflators. The Japanese parts supplier and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced in late January that several automakers would need to fix around five million more vehicles, and the various companies have been releasing the details since then. Daimler has a recall for 841,000 vehicles in the US, including 705,000 from Mercedes-Benz and 136,000 from the company's van division. Reuters reports the affected models consist of 2005-2014 examples of the SLK-Class, C-Class, E-Class, M-Class, GL-Class, R-Class, and SLS-Class. The vans comprise the 2007-2014 models of the Dodge, Freightliner, and Mercedes Sprinter. Autoblog reached out to Mercedes USA to confirm these details, and we're awaiting a reply. Daimler expects the repair campaign to cost 340 million euros ($382 million at current rates). The company will book the costs as part of its financial year 2015 results, and net profit for that year will fall to 8.7 billion euros ($9.8 billion). Volkswagen's recall covers 680,000 vehicles in the US to replace their driver side airbags. The affected models have Takata's SDI and PSDI-5 inflators, which could rupture in an crash, but the automaker isn't aware of any explosions for these parts in its products. This campaign includes: 2006-2010 Passat Sedan and Wagon (German Production) 2012-2014 Eos 2010-2014 Golf 2010-2014 Jetta SportWagen 2012-2014 Passat (U.S. Production) 2009-2014 CC There are also 170,000 Audi vehicles with the SDI and PSDI-5 inflators in the US, but there are no reports of the parts rupturing in the company's models. The affected products are: 2005-2013 A3 2006-2009 A4 Cabrio 2009-2012 Q5 2010-2011 A5 Cabrio VW and Audi are still working to identify the specific VINs for these vehicles. Afterwards, they will notify affected owners. Ford, Mazda, and Honda already announced details for their new round of Takata repairs. VW and Audi also recalled a small number of Tiguans and Q5s to replace their side airbag inflators from the Japanese company. NHTSA still expects BMW and Saab to detail expanded safety campaigns.

CES Part 2: Honda/Sony Afeela, BMW i Vision Dee and more | Autoblog Podcast #763

In this episode of the Autoblog Podcast, Editor-in-Chief Greg Migliore is joined by Senior Editor James Riswick and Associate Editor Byron Hurd. This week, they pick up from last week and dig deeper into some of the reveals and news coming from this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) including the Ram 1500 Revolution, the Afeela EV collaboration from Sony and Honda, Peugeot Inception, BMW i Vision Dee and VW ID.7, among other highlights and musings from the show. They also discuss the cars they've been driving, including the BMW iX, Mercedes EQS SUV, two-door Bronco Badlands, Mazda CX-50 Meridian Edition and Toyota RAV4 Wilderness Edition. Send us your questions for the Mailbag and Spend My Money at: Podcast@Autoblog.com. Autoblog Podcast #763 Get The Podcast Apple Podcasts – Subscribe to the Autoblog Podcast in iTunes Spotify – Subscribe to the Autoblog Podcast on Spotify RSS – Add the Autoblog Podcast feed to your RSS aggregator MP3 – Download the MP3 directly Rundown CES 2023 Ram 1500 Revolution Sony Honda Mobility Afeela EV prototype Peugeot Inception BMW i Vision Dee Volkswagen ID.7 Cars we're driving 2023 BMW iX 2023 Mercedes EQS 450 SUV 2022 Ford Bronco Badlands Two-Door 7MT 2023 Mazda CX-50 Meridian Edition 2023 Toyota RAV4 Woodland Edition Feedback Email – Podcast@Autoblog.com Review the show on Apple Podcasts Autoblog is now live on your smart speakers and voice assistants with the audio Autoblog Daily Digest. Say “Hey Google, play the news from Autoblog” or "Alexa, open Autoblog" to get your favorite car website in audio form every day. A narrator will take you through the biggest stories or break down one of our comprehensive test drives. Related video: Green Podcasts CES BMW Ford Honda Mazda Mercedes-Benz RAM Toyota Volkswagen Peugeot Truck Coupe Crossover SUV Concept Cars Electric Luxury Off-Road Vehicles Performance Sedan Afeela