Fourtitude forecasts Audi's future in LeMans racing
Over the past two years, Audi as well as Peugeot have proven conclusively that diesel-powered race cars have all the performance needed to win on the track. However, following the Laguna Seca finale for the 2007 American Le Mans Series, the future of Audi's LMP1 cars is cloudy. The company has yet to announce its 2008 racing plans and ALMS officials have gradually chipped away at Audi's advantage so that the LMP2 cars now regularly beat the R10. Further rule changes are on the horizon, as Le Mans organizers the ACO will be changing the rules again in 2010 and require enclosed cars. Over at Fourtitude, they have some renderings of what a new Audi LMP might look like that adheres to the new enclosed-car rule. The proposal incorporates some design elements from the road going R8, including the road car's polarizing aluminum side scoops. Whether any of those aesthetic touches would make it to a racecar is doubtful, so we'll just have to wait and see where the Ingolstadt team ultimately decides to go with its winning ways in motorsport.
Click on the Read link to view more renderings over at Fourtitude.
[Source: Fourtitude]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jack 12:26AM (2/07/2008)
The ALMS sucks.
LeMans and the LMS are looking better.
Perhap the ALMS should scrap their lame series after ten years of trying and put their efforts into making Sebring,Petit LeMans and Mosport N. American rounds of the LMS.
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Joe K. 12:16PM (10/23/2007)
Well, It went Bentley then Audi, So is the next race team going to be Skoda? That would be an embarrassing nameplate to have win...
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Yago Bal 12:26PM (10/23/2007)
So what's the point in having two prototype categories (LMP1 and LMP2) if ALMS officials keep on penalizing one so that they both perform at the same level? An LMP1 car is quite more expensive and technologicaly advanced than an LMP2, and it's plain ilogical to make them go as slow as cheaper cars.
In the European series, everything is fine... In ALMS, it seems like what they really want isn't a technological racing sport, but another NASCAR motorshow.
It makes me sad.
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Rob 1:02PM (10/23/2007)
I agree. Instead of crippling the new technology (R10), why not embrace it and let everyone else do the catching up? This is a great first step to seeing more high performance diesel engines making their way into production cars.
howard 1:03PM (10/23/2007)
You're 100% right YAGO BAL, it seems like as soon as a race team solves a problem and starts winning races the powers to be step in and make rule changes to defeat them! don't make the competition bring THEIR equipment up to the winners standards! I've been a NASCAR fan for over 60 years but with the CRAP they're making me watch now; I.E. follow the leader he'll get you to the finish line but don't DARE to try and pass him or you'll be black flagged! Of course the leaders in this case are 90% of the time Jeff Gordon or Jimmie Johnson! I'd like to know what they have to pay NASCAR to sneak their cars through pre race inspection. and another thing; when a pit crew can dictate the winner of a race i throw in my towel, in the old days when we had a yellow caution flag all lap counting stopped till all the cars that wanted to make a pit stop were back on the track and lined up for a restart the lap counting started again! Now one pit man can cause his car to lose a race if he gets bought off with say; $100,000 by not tightening 1 lugnut making his car to have to return to the pit for it to be tightened! Don't you believe for one minute they CAN'T be bought off. They've already had one who sold out for $10,000, he left the overflow can in the hole at the rear of the car for overflow can be kept off the ground and put back in the fuel cans, NASCAR measures every ounce of fuel to be sure know ones slipping in more fuel that they're allowed to have which is one of the GOOD things they do! I'm starting to watch URL and INYCAR races from last week on!
Dondonel 1:52PM (10/23/2007)
@Yago Bal
Nonsense. By regulation LMP1 has all the advantages over LMP2. That includes better power to weight, more power overall, more downforce. LMP2 seems dominant today only because Porsche Spyder is a much better race car compared to R10. R10 proved to be an embarrassment, wining only a few races overall this ALMS season (4 IIRC). And honestly, if Audi is to stay in the competition, I hope they'll come up with a better looking car than the one in this render, the old R8C and Speed 8 were so much nicer/interesting.
nissanfreak87 1:10PM (10/23/2007)
I hate racing restrictions, it's like penalizing a company for making a superior car, instead of forcing the outperformed to make a better car that can compete.
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CEMan 1:40PM (10/23/2007)
Howard
Isn't that how racing has been for decades? Look back at F1 in the 50's and 60's. They changed the formula practically every year. And, to they're credit, very few teams were so dominant as today.
As an Audi and diesel fan, I have loved to watch Audi trounce the competition, but it does tend to lead to some pretty dull racing eh?
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Yago Bal 2:54PM (10/23/2007)
They aren't changing the rules: they are intencionally restricting the capabilities of a specific LMP1 car, so that it runs as slow as an LMP2 car: there's no merit for the Porsche cars.
It's like placing F1s and GP2 cars in the same race, and then telling the F1 teams: "Sorry, but we're limiting your engines to 4000 rpm: we want to see more ballance between cars. Sorry for all the money you've spent."
If you follow the European LM series, you'd see the natural difference between LMP1 and LMP2 formulas.
In fact, if you see the actual Le Mans race, you'd know that having a miriad of cars in different categories is part of it's magic... It's a crazy idea but if Le Mans was in the US, I wouldn't be surprised to see someone defending that the LMP1 should be restricted so that the GT2 could give them a fight.
Dondonel 4:15PM (10/23/2007)
@ Yago Bal
That's completely false. ACO/IMSA rules, by design, give at least 15% performace advantage to LMP1 class. This difference has increased to allow diesels to run in the competition. R10 did not make the weight, so in order to make it competitive, ACO increased the minimum weight of all prototype cars, including LMP2.
In fact diesels are dominant in the LMP1 class only because the rules make the gasoline powered cars uncompetitive. Diesels are allowed to have higher displacement, higher compression ratio, higher boost. ACO says that they have to do this because gasoline powered engines have rpms twice as high (which doubles the torque at the wheel), which is true, however the higher displacement/ compression ratio/ boost combo gives diesels much more torque than the one allowed for the gasoline engines.
Audi, because they have been the only sponsor/attraction of the series for a long while, want all the possible advantages they can get behind the scene. It would be much better if they would go back to the drawing board and design a competitive race car. Audi should quit whinning, scrap that diesel nonsense, and face Porsche on the race track.
Yago Bal 5:09PM (10/23/2007)
Diesel isn't a nonsese in a race car: it converts more of the fuel into power (Diesels have an engine efficiency of about 40%, versus Otto's 25-30%).
And the proof is that Peugeot is up there to the fight.
And the rules don't favor Diesels: Pescarolo made faster gasoline cars than Audi more than one time. They had reliability issues, not speed ones.
Audi's were penalized in ALMS in a totally arbitrary fashion, just because the competition wasn't up to the task. As I said, you only have to see how the European Le Mans Series is going, and how the Peugeots are running there. It so clear it hurts the eyes.
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Yago Bal 5:12PM (10/23/2007)
..and why sould Audi face Porsche on the race track, if Audi races LMP1 and Porsche decided to race LMP2?
Dan 1:35AM (10/24/2007)
@Yago Bal
I would like to see a serious proof for that 40% efficiency figure you attribute to diesel race engines. It is certainly not true for passenger cars, where diesels have pretty much the same efficiency as gasoline engines, about 30%. It is true that industrial diesels can reach 40% efficiency, but they don't have the weight/dimensions/NVH/pollution restrictions that passenger engines have.
Dan 1:39AM (10/24/2007)
@Yago Bal
Pescarolo is a poor excuse for competition. This was the level of LM race for almost ten years. And what arbitrary penalties are you talking about? How about the mandatory weight increase that all prototypes were forced to comply with, so that Audi R10 would eventually make the weight.
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