Audi R10 success means more restrictions in ALMS
A couple of years ago the thought of a diesel-powered race car would've made all but the most die-hard diesel fans laugh out loud. Today, however, Audi is dominating the American Le Mans Series with its pair of diesel-powered R10 racers. Their domination is so thorough, in fact, that ALMS organizers have decided to grant their competition concessions so they can keep up.
At this weekend's round of racing at Road America, the competing LM P1 Lolas from the Dyson team will be allowed to race with 143 pounds less than the R10s. At the following race at Mosport the Lolas will be given a five-liter larger fuel tank, as well. These concessions seem to be aimed at making up the gap in power and fuel economy the R10s enjoy over their gas-powered competitors.
The decision by ALMS officials to change the rules in the middle of the series have cast doubt about Audi's future participation in the series, though the team plans to tough it out for the time being. Road America's long 4-mile track should suit the R10's abilities, despite the fact Audi engineers calculate the cars will be giving up 1.3 seconds per lap due to their weight disadvantage.
[Source: Audi]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Chris 5:32PM (8/14/2006)
That's crap! WTF ever happened to competition? If the mouse gets smarter, you build a better mouse trap. You don't bring in a cat. Unless of course, you're convinced the mouse is smarter than you.
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Corey 5:36PM (8/14/2006)
We're taking care of this, the American way! YEAH!
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Not a n00b... 5:44PM (8/14/2006)
Chris, you apparently haven't paid much attention to sports car racing before. Different cars get different specs. The R8 was penalized many times to keep it even.
In addition, it's not like there's a level playfield right now. The R10 gets a 5.5L engine with 3 bar of boost and a 40mm air restrictor. A gas car gets a 4.0L (limit) engine with 1.6 bar of boost and a 34mm (2/3rds the size, making the Audi restrictor 50% larger) restrictor.
The R10 got very favorable rules out of the ACO, and IMSA is just working to fix them, to be honest.
I spoke of this a while ago on autoblog. There is no vendor of competitive Diesel engines for Le Mans cars. That means all privateers are forced to run gas engines, which cannot compete given the rules. So if you want any privateers in your racing (and both ACO and IMSA do, trust me), you have to fix the rules.
So IMSA is.
Note that Audi forced an ACO rule change increasing the minimum weight of LMP900 cars by 44lbs because with their giant, heavy Diesel block they couldn't make the minimum weight in the class. So they got the class rules changed! Way to go Audi!
In the end, the Audi's fuel cell size will have to be reduced (or the gas one increased). They were able to stop 10% fewer times for fuel during Le Mans than the nearest gas car. There's no way to compete with that.
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JB 5:55PM (8/14/2006)
This sounds like the Aston-Martin/Corvette battle, where the Vettes were forced to add weight to balance the field. I disagree there and here. That's what's wrong with racing. NASCAR, are you listening?
There should be no weight penalties at all. As long as the Audi complies with the rules, which should stay the same all season, then too bad for everybody else. Audi gets to romp all season and the other teams start planning on next season's improvements.
I'm tired of these "parade" races where the cars are essentially the same and R&D is not rewarded. The best series were those where people pushed the limits and the rules to get an advantage.
Racing is not the kids community sports league, where they don't keep score, everyone is a "winner" and no one's feelings get hurt. "Here you go, the Audi must race with its parking brake on this race so you can win." Don't you feel better (pat on head) - here's your trophy. That's not racing at all!
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RacetrackOwner 6:04PM (8/14/2006)
Tweaking the rules to keep the race competitive has ALWAYS been a part of racing. Usually it's a good thing, but sometimes it's a bit suspect (people have been muttering for years that the Vettes are long, long overdue for some restrictions, but money talks).
#3's post is dead-on, and additionally diesels were allowed variable nozzle sizes in their turbos, and they were allowed larger fuel tanks. Since diesel fuel has a much higher energy content per unit volume than gasoline, that further magnifies the benefit of the other concessions.
This was intentional. The ACO wanted to encourage development of alternative fuels in racing. Expect to see similarly lax rules for things like ethanol fuels. Either these alternative rules pan out and gain a following, at which point the rules start being tweaked to bring them into line with the other cars (as we see them doing with the R10), or it doesn't go anywhere and there is no harm done. Without these concessions it simply wouldn't be worth the considerable investment and risk to go in such a radical new direction.
It looks like the ACO went a little overboard with the concessions, but hindsight is 20/20, as they say...
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RacetrackOwner 6:08PM (8/14/2006)
#4 -- R&D is not rewarded??? They won the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Maybe you missed all the commercials with the street Audis and the reflections of the R10's in the storefront windows. I see people taking Audi's seriously on the track -- that didn't happen very often ten years ago.
They're being rewarded. What they're not doing is being handed an endless series of wins on a silver platter by virtute of competing under a different set of unchanging, highly permissive rules designed to encourage new development.
The comparison to NASCAR isn't remotely valid. A better comparison would be to the awful Daytona Prototypes. Those are cookie-cutter cars masquerading as sports cars... but their fanbase is small, so hopefully that whole series will dry up and blow away, and the France family can get back to focusing on cookie-cutter circle track stock cars and leave the rest of the racing world alone.
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gkz 7:05PM (8/14/2006)
While I concede that changing the rules to promote parity is part of this type of racing, it seems irrational to punish Audi for being the only manufactuer to have the balls to take the alternative fuel route right away.
Can anyone honestly belive that Porsche couldn't have developed the RS Spyder to be a diesel? Or that a partnership (Cosworth & Prodrive as a hypothetical) couldn't develop new technology if they made a commitment to it?
The Corvette/Aston comparison is irrelevant here. The existing rules were drafted with the express purpose of advancing alternative fuel technology. Audi took fair advantage of the rules and deserves to keep winning until someone puts up a legimate challenge to them.
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Christian 7:15PM (8/14/2006)
Audi is so lame. Use a diesel. Frig of course they get awesome mileage. They should not have been allowed in the first place, they are merely taking advantage of a hole in the rules. Anybody could have built a hi-po diesel and won (Jag, Mercedes, etc.). Only Audi has the Audacity to cheat cause they'll do anything to win, which isn't always the point.
Bunch of freaking cheaters. Of course the race organizers probably don't have any experience in inspecting diesls so Audi gets to do what they want. Utter crap. If ALMS had any balls, they's say, sorry, your cars has to run a certain octane range. This doesn't comply with that particular rule, since diesels run a different scale. Sorry about your luck.
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spdracerut 7:58PM (8/14/2006)
Audi running a diesel is by no means cheating. They did it because the racing organization wanted to promote alternative fuels (as F1 is now considering with various technologies such as hybrid drivetrains).
There are MANY technical challenges that Audi had to overcome and be the first to break ground on to make a viable diesel powered race car. Heck, they even have particulate filters on the car to reduce emissions.
As for Porshce making a diesel race motor? I doubt it... they don't have any diesels in their product lineup that I know of; diesel technology is very different from regular unleaded.
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Mino 8:56PM (8/14/2006)
#3 - First off there's reasons of 4.0 limits, and 5.5 limits to the engine restrictions, the nature of the fuel burning in the chamber is completely different, there must be a larger restrictor b/c what's the nature of a diesel a compression ignition engine, instead of using sparks, they need a ton of air to produce enough pressure to combust the fuel. If both cars had 4.0 liter engines with their respective SI or CI systems the SI would far outperform the car there would not be any competition whatsoever sure the 4.0 would get great mileage but you ever been in a diesel and seen how fast they accelerate? There should be in my opinion a slight increase in the fuel cell size of the gasoline cars, or a small decrease in the size of the restrictor.
#8 - I just believe that Audi shouldn't have to be punished essentially so the rest have a more even playing field right? and btw using a Diesel is by no means cheating, do you even have any rational reasoning to back up such claims? yes a Diesel gets more mileage but they have less horsepower generally, and produce an abundance amount of torque, so who wants to take on the daunting task of designing and fabricating a transmission to deal with that torque for any Le Mans race. Do you remember the issues they had with their old R8? and the rule changes that were made b/c of them switching out their transmission and rear end assembly?
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Not a n00b... 10:12PM (8/14/2006)
Whoa, whoa. For starters, Audi technically wasn't even punished. The changes were made to the OTHER cars. Audi lost an advantage, but their spec was not changed. This is different to the Vettes for example which picked up 144 lbs, a lower rev limit and a smaller restrictor within the span of 4 races.
Mino:
Audi changed their rear end at Le Mans essentially as a stunt. They claimed they had a problem with the gears but would change it as a precautionary measure. It is more likely they knew they already had the race in hand (and they did) and changed the rear end as a publicity stunt, because they suspected that they wouldn't get the chance to do it again (they were right, ACO changed the rules before the next 24). Audi does appear to have legit problems with the R10 gears, and the traction control apparently damages the gears too!
Christian, apparently not just anyone could make a Hi-Po Diesel and win. Caterpillar tried it two years before Audi (with a VW V10 pretending to be a Cat engine).
ACO has in recent history pushed alternative fuels a lot. They had biodiesel cars before the R10 even ran! ACO gives generous rules for the alternative fuel cars knowing most efforts will be poorly funded and poorly developed. Then Audi comes in with a very expensive, very developed car and takes advantage of those rules.
That's all fine. But you have to understand that ACO must move to tighten these rules to keep other cars from becoming unviable. This is especially critical for privateers who cannot afford to buy a whole new car each year. And as I mentioned before, no company sells Diesel race engines for Le Mans (Audi and Peugeot keep theirs to themselves) for privateers to use anyway. ACO wants to expand Le Mans to 55 cars next year, they'll need privateers to fill those slots, they can't let them fall too far behind.
A similar thing happened with this in Indy in 1990 or so. They put in new rules that allowed pushrod engines to have a lot more displacement than OHC engines. This was to encourage new engine suppliers to make cheaper engines and reduce the cost of racing. Seeing this hole, Ilmor created a pushrod engine using these rules that made all the other engines uncompetitive. They sold the engine design to Mercedes-Benz (later Chevrolet). So instead of reducing the cost of racing and making more teams competitive, it widened the gap.
So this isn't a case of ACO penalizing superior technology. It was the rules that made Diesel so strong at Le Mans (if only by the same rules making gas engines much less powerful and limiting range by shrinking the fuel cells), not an inherent greatness of Diesel. If you simply put the 40mm restrictor on an R8, it would wipe the pavement with the R10. Give it its 44lbs back and it'll get farther ahead. Give it back the 0.4 bar of boost taken away and the 10L of fuel, and it'll set a new distance record, making the R10 just a memory.
In the end, ACO will at the least shrink the Diesel fuel cell (or increase the gas ones) and shrink the Diesel restrictor. The only question is how soon they'll do it. I suspect they'll let Peugeot come in with their Diesel in 2007, especially if Pescarolo gets the engines, with Sebastien Loeb at the helm. ACO is not going to punish a French legend with a top French driver and a French engine their first time out.
In the end, I don't have a problem with ACO encouraging alternative fuels. I don't have a problem with Audi taking advantage of the rules. But I know IMSA (ALMS) cannot tolerate losing all their P1 privateers, and so they must do what they must do to keep the privateers in. I suspect ACO will follow too.
I also know that given that consumer cars are not subject to arbitrary intake restrictors, fuel tank size restrictions or boost/displacement restrictions, the R10 doesn't indicate any kind of superiority of Diesel for consumer-level performance applications. But the Diesel companies should keep going at this, Diesel is close to being the engine of choice in the Dakar rally, and that's quite an accomplishment.
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chewy 10:48PM (8/14/2006)
Not a n00b...
Wrong, diesels feature almost the same hp as NA engines of the same size, get more torque and improved fuel economy while having very similar performance.
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Chivo 11:08PM (8/14/2006)
Chewy and Christian are ignorant.
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Otis 11:50PM (8/14/2006)
When are they going to make a racing league with these rules.
-Have 4 wheels
-Cannot change tires during the race
-Set amount of fuel*
-Must have a human driver
-Vehicle can provide adequate protection for driver at full speed.
Rules that wouldn't exist:
-Downforce limitations
-Intake restrictions
-Weight limits
-Engine size limits
-Speed limits
-Rev limiters
-Vehicle dimension limits
-Fuel tank limits
-NASCAR's No Right-Hand Turning rule
*There would be a Maximum Fuel-Energy Limit (1 gal gas = 150,000 BTUs. Start the rules at requiring 25 mpg [~6000 BTUs per Mile]), so a 500 mile race you get 20 gal (3,000,000 BTUs) of gas max. Having an energy limit rather than a gas/diesel requirement would open the field to any alternative fuels that wanted to compete.
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Mino 1:07AM (8/15/2006)
#11 well right so you're saying the definition of punish is wrong in my way of using it? when you lose an advantage that you "worked for" and "developed" that's not a punishment? I understand you said "technically"...but come on man, and good to see you shed some light on the subject.
#12 as for Chewy, really...same HP? but more TQ? right so all those "dumbass" engineers must be "NOOB" since they wrote up those rules, you must be soooo much more intelligent than all of us.
Also, the useable acceleration powerband on a diesel is much smaller when used in racing applications to my knowledge, sorry I'm so noob for generalizing things, but I only have limited experience & knowledge with actual racing which is as a student in SAE events.
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gkz 1:25AM (8/15/2006)
Christian -
Has anyone told you lately that you're an ignorant moron?
For you to believe that Audi cheated because they, and only they, took advantage of rules that apply to EVERYBODY is stunningly stupid on your part.
You should try to get at least a 1st grade level understanding of what you're talking about before you spit out this garbage. Better luck next time.
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chewy 1:59AM (8/15/2006)
Mino
I was talking about PRODUCTION cars, the noob dude said that diesels don't offer anything for consumers. He should read the BMW 330d test in the latest Car and Driver.
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Mino 2:43AM (8/15/2006)
chewy ahhh okay, well diesels are a bit underpowered accerlation wise etc, but for a consumer when they buy a diesel they're definately not thinking about racing, however a VW TDI would be a cavalier/civic (non-si)/corolla etc lol
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spdracerut 11:05AM (8/15/2006)
Diesels do not make anywhere near the power of a regular gas motor for the same displacement.
Mercedes E320 3.2L turbo diesel, 201hp
Golf and Jetta 1.9L turbo diesel, 100hp
Both compared to a 2.0L turbo motor from the EVO, 286hp.
One very limiting factor in diesels making power is the limited rev ability. They make a buttload of torque, but can't rev high to make power.
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Dr. Woo 11:50AM (8/15/2006)
spdracerut,
Are you seriously comparing a very high-performance turbocharged race-bred 2.0L with a long history of tuning to an economy 1.9L? Sure, they have similar displacement, but compare something that's meant for the same purpose.
Mercedes 3.2L CDI: 201 hp
Cadillac 3.2L V6: 220 hp
Volkswagen 2.0L TDI: 140 hp
Ford 2.0L Duratec 20: 136 hp
I'm still scratching my head over why you chose to compare the Mitsubishi 4G63 to a Volkswagen economy Diesel.
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