Racing Legends

Audi A4 DTM

- Jason Barlow

“You’re always sliding the car, spanking it yet controlling it all the time. As a driver, you’re more aware of the balance than the sheer speed.” It’s 2004, and works Audi driver – and soon to be eight-time Le Mans winner – Tom Kristensen is tightening my race harness in an Audi A4 DTM car.

These mid-Noughties German touring cars really were something to behold. Audi, BMW, Merc and Opel all fielded increasingly lairy-looking cars, – the 2004 A4 was one of the most successful. These cars, unlike their real-world cousins, had carbon body panels clothing a tubular spaceframe chassis, complete with carbon safety cell for the driver and carbon crash structures, front and rear.