Audi Motorsport Le Mans Team
The Le Mans 24 Hours race remains one of the most significant in the racing calendar. There are various reasons for this, but it includes the fact that it is a fantastic spectacle which brings out the best in the cars, the drivers and the teams behind each and every entry. New technology is frequently showcased and it appears that this is what helped Audi bring home the victory in 2010.
The ninth triumph – in total – of the brand at Le Mans was made possible by a technology which Audi Sport developed for racing during the past three years in strict secrecy: the V10 TDI engine of the Audi R15 TDI with an approximate power output of 440 kW and a turbo-charger with Variable Turbine Geometry (VTG).
VTG turbo-chargers are standard with Audi TDI engines in production vehicles. Their use at Le Mans helps the Audi engineers to continue to develop the technology for smaller, highly efficient turbo engines to be used in the future. “At Le Mans we’re dealing with temperatures above 1,000 degrees centigrade which have not been encountered with production engines so far,” explains Ulrich Baretzky, Head of Engine Development at Audi Sport. “As a result of downsizing, production development will enter into similar temperature ranges. This makes VTG another good example of how the technology transfer between motorsport and the production side of the house works at Audi.”
The victorious Audi R15 TDI with Timo Bernhard (Germany), Romain Dumas (France) and Mike Rockenfeller (Germany) completed a total of 397 laps in the 24 hours. With the covered distance of 5,410 kilometres, the trio broke the 1971 record set by Dr. Helmut Marko and Gijs van Lennep in the Porsche 917 that was considered unbeatable because the Hunaudières straight at that time had no chicanes – another demonstration of the performance capabilities of Audi TDI technology.
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