With Porsche’s World Endurance Championship team looking so good at Le Mans and the Nürburgring, everybody’s wondering: what are the other LMP1 teams doing to match that pace? We asked Audi Sport Head of LMP Chris Reinke at the WEC’s last round at the Nürburgring to find out.
Remember the Aggro-crag? Yeah, you do. If you didn’t, that’s okay. Pieces of Loïc Duval’s broken Audi definitely chunked off in a way that resembles the star of Nickelodeon’s “Guts.”
After winning the FIA World Endurance Championship season opener at Silverstone, Audi changed the R18’s bodywork significantly before hitting Spa to prepare for dominating at Le Mans once again.
Audi will be switching from the two-megajoule to the four-megajoule sub-class this year within the LMP1 class in the World Endurance Championship. What does that mean? This year's R18 e-tron quattro Le Mans prototype racer gets more hybrid power, delivering more of electric boost for longer periods of time.
[All nine LMP race drivers reeled off a total of almost 4,000 miles in a test version of the new Audi R18 e-tron quattro on five test days at Sebring, USA, during the first week of March. Photo credit: Audi]
Audi continues to test its LMP1-class R18 e-tron quattro at Sebring, where the surface is just old and bumpy enough to be a good, proper shakedown—and we do mean shake. Watch as the R18 skips along the surface, rattling the driver inside.
You can see way more of the 24 Hours of Le Mans if you stream it online or just watch it on the TV with a six-pack in the fridge. But if you can, you simply must go there one day. It's just one of those things.
Yesterday, we got introduced to the Circuit des 24 Heures by the fantastic John Hindhaugh, and after getting passed by Mark Webber on a bicycle, we had to make a stop at Loic Duval's crash scene. Shattered fragments of his car were still on the tarmac.
The Audi Le Mans team had a terrifying moment yesterday after their No. 1 R-18 e-tron quattro car was obliterated after it slammed into a wall during practice. Thankfully, and in what can be seen as a testament to the safety of modern race cars, driver Loic Duval was unharmed.
The No.1 Audi R-18 e-tron quattro piloted by Loic Duval at Le Mans practice just went airborne, slamming into a wall backwards, and nearly completely destroying the car. Duval is out of the car and talking, according to his race team.
The Audi R18 e-tron quattro has a racing weight of 1,918 pounds, making it the lightest prototype they've ever built. This is how they do it.
The teams are getting ready for the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and since Audi is the one they all want to beat, it's time to see a few of the innovations that made Ingolstadt win twelve and a half (since the Bentley was using an Audi engine) of the last fourteen races.
[The first picture of Audi's 2014 WEC and Le Mans contender, the Audi R18 e-tron quattro, has emerged. If it's anything like last year's model, it should go on to win big. Image courtesy Joest Racing.]
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.
