This is Audi's new "long tail" R18 Le Mans racer taking a corner flat out at 212 miles an hour. It sounds like a faraway jet fighter and it looks like nothing you've seen.

Audi is preparing a new aerodynamic variant of the R18 e-tron quattro racecars for the next round of the FIA World Endurance Championship on May 4 at Spa. This will be the final race where the long-tail variant can be improved before the Le Mans 24 Hours in June.

It was a little depressing to watch Toyota and the DeltaWing fall out of the 24 Hours of Le Mans this year to let Audi steamroll the race with little drama through the rest of the classes. At times, though, the beauty of the race took over.

Every win at the 24 Hours of Le Mans is historic, but the Audi R18 E-Tron Quattro's 1-2 victory was especially noteworthy as the vehicles were the first hybrids to win the prestigious auto racing marathon. Let's just not confuse these with your grandma's Prius.

Someone in Ingolstadt is putting ecstasy in the water supply. It's the only way to explain how the Audi R18 Hybrid we've heard about became this diesel hybrid AWD race car. Get your glow sticks out, we're about to rave to the Audi R18 E-tron Quattro.

This isn't some video game replay, this is eight minutes of onboard footage of the Audi R18 TDi that won the 2011 24 Hours of Le Mans. We can tell you how quiet diesel Le Mans prototypes are and how low they rev, but you really just have to hear one for yourself.

Last year's menacing Audi R18 TDI Le Mans racer brought with it the radical addition of a closed roof. If spy photos from QuattroWorld are any indication, the next R18 might feature a diesel-hybrid power train.

Dindo Capello's face turns from joyful to terrified. His friends are peppering him with questions, but his eyes are fixed on a video monitor, where a helicopter-borne camera is panning over the scene of an accident. Capello's trying to gain as much information as possible on the health of his friend and Audi teammate,…

Half a second was the time difference in qualifying between the first starting position and the sixth for the 2011 24 hours of Le Mans. The big story ahead of the race: Audi's R18, the car designed specifically for winning at the legendary La Sarthe circuit.

The first detailed accident photos of Allan McNish's R18 crash moments after it happened, showing what's left of the vehicle after it crashed into a Ferrari 458 and spun itself into the wall.