Audi has released another round of photography of the many versions of the new R8 and specifically the R8 (V8), the R8 V10, R8 V10 Spyder and R8 V10 plus. It’s also released several design drawings of this new facelifted version of the four-ring supercar. The move is done as part of the planned release around the perhaps surprising move of revealing the car at the Interauto Car Show in Moscow. Press days for that Russian auto show are Wednesday and Thursday of this week.

Why Russia? The move was a bit of a surprise to some who thought the car would debut in Paris in September. If you subscribe to the theory that Audi likes to follow in the tradition of a model and reveal that car in the same city as its original, then you might recall that the R8 production car first rolled in front of the media driven by Tom Kristensen on a stage in a park in Paris the night before the Paris Auto Show. Paris certainly seemed the most likely.

Another assumption we’ve made about Audi in the past is that it saved up its big launches for shows where there’d be a large collection of media. Think Frankfurt, Paris, Geneva, Detroit or Tokyo. This collection of cities is becoming less and less important though as the media landscape expands and as once tertiary markets such as China, the U.S. and Russia all begin to grow into larger components of the Audi business. Russia is important to R8 business, and likely first showing it here opens up more room for Audi to show off even more spectacles in Paris… we’re certain with plenty of new R8s on the stand in France as well.

As for tradition, we expect that’s not entirely lost on Audi. Hot off a win at Silverstone this past weekend, Audi’s two time Le Mans dominating trio of Andre Lotterer, Benoit Treluyer and Marcel Fassler are on location in Moscow. How do we know? Unfortunately we’re not there to report on things first hand, but Lotterer and Treluyer both tweeted about being in Russia earlier today though without mentioning anything about the R8. Treluyer alluded to the launch of Audi’s new S-cars but we’re doing the math and we suspect Audi will use its young guns to show off the new R8 instead.

Below are links to the various R8 photo galleries that include the new photos. We’ve grouped them in around each particular model with the previously released shots. Enjoy.

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