Audi claimed a podium shut-out at the Le Mans 24 Hours this weekend, with the all-new diesel-hybrid R18 e-tron quattros finishing first and second in the famous endurance race.
For the second year in succession, the crew of Marcel Fässler, André Lotterer and Benoit Tréluyer finished first, amassing 378 laps after 24 gruelling hours, although the race was not without incident for the four-car Audi squad.
The Ingolstadt manufacturer went into the French event as clear favourite to score its 11th victory in 13 starts. Peugeot, which had ruined Audi's run of success by winning the 2009 race, had pulled out, and although Toyota had entered two of its new TS030 petrol-hybrid prototypes, the Japanese manufacturer was not expected to seriously challenge with its still-developing machine.
Read Vicky Parrott's Le Mans reflections
As it happened, the Toyotas showed a surprising turn of pace in both qualifying and the race. Although Audi led from the start, the two Toyotas – one driven by Anthony Davidson, Sébastien Buemi and Stéphane Sarrazin and the other by Alex Wurz, Nicolas Lapierre and Kazuki Nakajima – remained in contention during the early hours.
But the Japanese challenge was dramatically blunted when Davidson's car was hit by an errant backmarker at the flat-out Mulsanne Corner. The Toyota got airborne, before crashing heavily back onto the asphalt and slamming into the tyre barrier. The British racer broke two vertebrae in the accident and the car was destroyed.
The second Toyota remained in touch with the leading Audis until Nakajima, trying to make up ground shortly after a safety car period, struck the experimental Nissan DeltaWing. The contact pitched the crowd-pleasing DeltaWing into the wall and subsequent retirement, and forced the Toyota into the pits for time-consuming repairs.
With the Toyota team decimated, the race for victory effectively boiled down to a duel between the two hybrid Audis. It was decided in the favour of the reigning champions when Allan McNish, sharing the number two hybrid with Tom Kristensen and Dindo Capello, spun off into barriers while trying to lap a slower car in the Porsche Curves. Although he got the damaged Audi back to the pits, the incident and delay gave Fässler, Lotterer and Tréluyer the breathing space they needed to cruise home at the head of the pack.
The two hybrid cars were chased home by the more conventional diesel-powered R18 Ultra of Oliver Jarvis, Marco Bonanomi and Mike Rockenfeller. The prospect of an Audi top-four shut-out was scuppered by Rebellion Racing Lola-Toyota piloted by Nicolas Prost, Nick Heidfeld and Neel Jani, who finished a lap ahead of the second R18 Ultra of Marc Dumas, Loic Duval and Romain Dumas.
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Congrats Audi.
Time for a rule change?,when a team win a prestigeous race like this,shoudn't there be a rule change to give other teams hope?,or, if you win it so easily, why don't they not take part for a few years?, then, more to prove when they do?
Peter Cavellini wrote: Time
There have been rule changes pretty much every year of the last 13 years of Audi's involvement (and earlier), and many of them have specifically been aimed at slowing Audi down. The rules for diesel engines are much tougher than they were in 2006 when Audi first raced with them - every year the ACO have tried to restrict the diesels' pace and every year Audi (and Peugeot) would get it back through development.
Audi have seen off Aston Martin, Peugeot and now Toyota. It's not Audi's fault that the others have not ben able to beat them, save for Peugeot in 2009. In the same way that Schumacher and Ferrari's domination didn't hurt F1's popularity a decade ago, sportscar racing has had a big net benefit from Audi's commitment.
Team Joest, who run the Audi program, are one of the best motor racing outfits anywhere in the world. These are the guys who ran a privateer Porsche 956 and beat the works 962s in a straight fight in 1985, much to the factory's embarrassment. Running their own amalgamation of a TWR/Jaguar-based chassis with a Porsche engine, they again humbled the factory 911 GT1s in 1996 and 1997, along with McLaren-BMW and Nissan's best efforts. After dominating Le Mans with Audi in 2000-2002, they 'loaned' a number of staff to sister brand Bentley when Audi withdrew the factory team for 2003, helping Bentley along to their win in what was effectively a green Audi.
Toyota's operation is deceptively massive. They are effectively a slimmed-down version of the F1 team, operating out of the massive Toyota Motorsport base in Germany. They will be a very tough competitor next year.
disco.stu wrote: Peter
I agree disco.stu. Also, bar Peugeot there hasn't really been a strong dedicated factory presence to challenge Audi since their first win in 2000 so it's not their fault their cars have been winning in the absence of any real constant competition. Hopefully Toyota will commit to sportcar racing for a few more years yet, which should hopefully entice manufacturers back in to the sport and then give Audi a challenge. Toyota showed their cars could take it to Audi, only reliability and a huge crash prevented them from a possible victory.
But definitely, credit shoud go to Joest Racing who have not only won Le Mans 4 times as a private team, but 9 times as a factory team since they first started running the works Audis since 1999. Compare this to Porsche who have won Le Mans 11 times as a works team, but over a period of 42 years!
In my mind, if there had to be a rule a change, then I'd state that all engines in sports-prototypes must be based on a series road car unit, which is currently only the case in LMP2. The majority of engines in the old Group C category were production based units which not gave sports-prototypes a link with road cars which people could then relate to, but it also worked well promotionally. At the moment, the engines in a R18 and TS030 for example are hugley expensive bespoke racing units like F1 engines.
Petrol still has a future
Although it was a shame to see Toyota fade through a massive crash and reliability issues, they showed that petrol cars in LMP1 are not dead. Whether it had anything to do with the hybrid system or not the TS030 had the measure of the Audis at race pace, if not faster. After years of only have 2 factory teams in the class who fielded diesel cars, it needed another manufacturer to field a factory state of the art car with petrol power to show that both fuel types can still fight it out, which previous private petrol cars in the class never quite managed such as the Rebellions.
Well done to Audi as one of their car won the event for the 11th time since 2000, 9 of which through factory efforts. And Le Mans still has what it takes, while this race shows yet again that the top echelon in sportscar racing is equally as advanced as F1 cars and the pinnacle of race car design.
Lanehogger wrote:...the
Yes, I pretty much agree with that. I think Audi were there for the taking by a Toyota squad who had just 5 months preparation. Even last year Peugeot, like Toyota being outqualified by Audi, had a very slight edge in race pace, not for the entire race but for a good part of it. I hope for another good battle next year with a better prepared Toyota really taking it to Audi.
The Special One wrote: Yes,
It was good marketing spin and an attempt to lower people's expectations, but the reality was that Toyota have been working on this ever since they pulled out of F1 at the end of 2009. A lot of Toyota Team Europe staff were laid off, and the rest were transferred to the sportscar program. They have spent that time researching and developing their ideas, waiting for HQ to give the green light - it wasn't a 5-month start-up operation. They have also been supplying engines to and working with LMP1 teams for a couple of years, including Rebellion who finished 4th this year with a Toyota engine, gathering data and learning as much as possible. Peugeot withdrawing simply streamlined their process, as a bunch of drivers and engineers suddenly became available immediately and at cheaper prices than if they had to bid against Peugeot for their services in 2013.
Honda are currently doing the exact same thing - the HPD engines are effectively research lab units for Honda's planned LMP1 works entry. The head guy from HPD was quite candid when being interviewed on Radio Le Mans that Honda are prepping themselves for a factory assault, and HPD are basically waiting for a green light and effectively auditioning the current HPD customer teams to become partners in the program. Nissan's current strong support of LMP1 and LMP2 teams is also seen as being preparation for another works assault from 2014 or thereabouts.
Porsche have already announced they will be back with an LMP1 car for 2014, and have been working on it since at least last year and possibly earlier. They have already lured some of the Audi guys and will be strong from the start.
Lee23404 its demoralising,
Lee23404 its demoralising, because if I wanted to get excited by a diesel electric, I would take up train spotting.