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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.

VW offers to buy back new diesels if bans introduced

By Maria Sheahan FRANKFURT, Germany — Volkswagen will buy back new diesel cars if German cities ban them, it said on Thursday, seeking to reassure potential buyers and stem a plunge in sales of diesel vehicles. Europe's biggest automaker also said it would extend incentives for buyers of new diesel cars. The moves come after a German court ruled last month that cities in the country could ban the most polluting diesel vehicles from their streets. Many German cities exceed European Union limits on atmospheric nitrogen oxide, known to cause respiratory diseases. Fears of bans have led to a plunge in demand for diesel vehicles, which are also key to carmakers' attempts to meet new EU rules on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. While diesel cars are heavily criticized for emitting nitrogen oxide, they spew out less CO2 than gasoline equivalents. Diesel car sales plunged 19 percent in Germany last month. At its core VW brand, Volkswagen said its buyback offer applied to new diesels bought between April 1 and the end of 2018 and would kick in if the city in which the buyer lived or worked banned diesels within three years of the purchase. It said its dealerships would buy back diesel vehicles affected by bans at their current value if their owners at the same time bought a new vehicle that was not affected by cities' driving restrictions. At Czech brand Skoda, the guarantee applies to cars bought between April 1 and the end of June, but will cover bans introduced within four years of the purchase date. At premium brand Audi, the offer only covers leased vehicles. Volkswagen also said it was extending to the end of June incentives for customers trading in older diesels for new ones. Fellow German carmaker BMW said earlier this month it would offer to take back leased vehicles if diesels were banned within 100 kilometers (62 miles) of the operator's home or place of work. There has been a global backlash against diesel-engine cars since Volkswagen admitted in 2015 to cheating U.S. exhaust tests. But Germany's government is seeking to avoid widespread bans on heavily polluting diesel vehicles, which companies say could cut the resale value of up to 15 million vehicles in Europe's biggest car market. In Germany, where motorists expect to drive powerful cars on motorways with no speed limits, any restrictions will be unpopular.

Audi RS Q3 Performance pours sugar on the forbidden fruit

Don't let anybody tell you that Europeans don't like powerful SUVs any less than Americans do. They just like theirs a bit smaller. Case in point: the new Audi RS Q3 Performance. The latest in the ne plus ultra from Quattro GmbH joins the RS6 Avant Performance and RS7 Sportback Performance in dialing up the power even further. So while the 2.5-liter turbocharged inline-five carries over from the existing RS Q3, its output swells to 367 horsepower (27 more than before) and 343 pound-feet of torque. As a result, this tall take on the hot hatch blasts to 62 in just 4.4 seconds before topping out on the open Autobahn at nearly 168 miles per hour. Along with the power boost, the RS Q3 Performance benefits from a retuned seven-speed dual-clutch transmission, which works in tandem with the hydraulically actuated, electronically controlled all-wheel-drive system to get the power down to the road. The suspension is lowered, with available adaptive dampers fitted to 20-inch alloys. There are subtle details inside and out to distinguish it from "lesser" RS Q3 models. Unfortunately while Audi does offer the Q3 in base form here in America, it doesn't offer the RS variant altogether, let alone this new enhanced version. In fact the RS7 is the only model in the line we get here, so we'll just add this one to our growing list of forbidden fruit that we'd like to taste. Our compatriots in Germany, however, can pick one up right away for 61,000 euros, before it even makes its debut at the Geneva Motor Show next month. Related Video: 02/04/16 | Ingolstadt Pure power: the Audi RS Q3 performance - New top model with more power and exclusive equipment - Award-winning five-cylinder with 270 kW (367 hp) - Now accepting orders for the Audi RS Q3 performance Audi ignites the next stage of performance in the compact, high-performance SUV segment: The Audi RS Q3 performance* impresses with an output of 270 kW (367 hp) and 465 Nm (343.0 lb ft) of torque. This incredible power catapults the new top-of-the-line model from 0 to 100 km/h (62.1 mph) in just 4.4 seconds. Standard top speed is 270 km/h (167.8 mph). The premium brand is honing its sporty profile with new RS performance models. The "performance" in the name stands for both a significant power boost and exclusive equipment that clearly elevates the respective model above the rest of the portfolio. This also applies to the new RS Q3 performance, whose pulse is driven by the legendary Audi five-cylinder engine.