On Thursday evening, ahead of the Monaco Formula 1 Grand Prix, Audi made a surprise unveiling of the Nuvolari supercar at the luxury Cap Eden Roc hotel in Antibes, in the south of France.
Named after Grand Prix legend Tazio Nuvolari, who enjoyed great success for Auto Union in the 1930s, it will be the fastest Audi of all time.
With 1,001 horsepower, a top speed of over 350 km/h, active aerodynamics and an extremely aggressive design, the brand with the four rings has developed a vehicle in the wake of its F1 entry that is likely to be priced several tiers above the R8, its most recent combustion-engine sports car.
This is also suggested by the limited edition of just 499 units of the supercar, which is set to be delivered as early as the first half of 2027. But could the new model also serve as the basis for a new GT3 car from Audi?
Same engine as the Lamborghini Temerario
That would be entirely conceivable, because following the production halt for the Audi R8 in March 2024 and its GT3 derivative in November 2024, the Volkswagen subsidiary now once again has a supercar that could serve as a template.
And the engine would be perfectly suited for it as well. The Nuvolari, which visually combines elements of the electric sports car Concept C, the R8 and the Lamborghini Temerario, features a 4.0-litre V8 biturbo engine with 800hp, supported by two electric motors on the front axle and one on the rear axle.
Given these performance figures, it’s safe to assume the vehicle shares the same platform as the Lamborghini Temerario, whose 4.0-litre V8 biturbo engine also delivers exactly 800hp at a torque of up to 10,000 rpm.
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Audi’s subsidiary in Sant’Agata Bolognese used the in-house developed production engine for its GT3 car, albeit with smaller turbochargers and a redline of only 8,000 rpm, because the Balance of Performance (BoP) limits power output anyway.
Further, the Temerario and its GT3 offshoot were developed under the leadership of Lamborghini’s longtime Chief Technical Officer Rouven Mohr, who has held this position at Audi since March 1, 2026, and is considered a major advocate of motorsports.
The rapid development of the new Audi supercar is likely also linked to the fact that the brand, following its entry into F1, was under pressure to deliver an absolute high-performance vehicle for the road as well.
This could now benefit the customer racing division, which was scaled back to basic support by the end of 2023 and had actually fallen victim to the move into the premier class of motorsport. If Audi were to actually build a new GT3 car, finalisation before 2028 would be unrealistic, even with a shared platform with Lamborghini.
Ricardo Feller, Land Motorsport Audi R8 LMS GT3
Photo by: Markus Toppmöller
“R-Next”: Audi had already planned a potential GT3 car
As Motorsport.com’s sister title Motorsport-Total.com previously reported, Audi had a finished concept in the works several years ago with the R-Next, based on the Temerario platform, which also included a GT3 model.
However, the project failed at the time due to internal disputes over whether a purely electric sportscar or a hybrid supercar with an internal combustion engine was the right path, resulting in Audi Sport GmbH not receiving approval from Audi AG.
Just how far along the plan already was, however, was demonstrated by a 1:1 scale design model of the R-Next, which is said to have looked significantly more progressive than the Audi R8.
Will Audi’s Formula 1 reach now help the GT3 project?
It is also interesting in this context that the British car magazine Autocar reported a year ago that Audi CEO Gernot Dollner was pushing forward with the project for an R8 successor and that there was an internal effort to develop FIA-homologated versions of a new R8 in order to reclaim a leading role in endurance racing.
With the entry into F1, the response to which is understood to have significantly exceeded even Audi’s internal expectations, motorsports now has significantly more momentum. It will be interesting to see whether the German brand can use this momentum to return to its former glory in the GT3 and sports car sectors as well.
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