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From the Audi R18 thread--it was reported last month that Andre Lotterer crashed one of the R18 test cars in the Audi private test at Sebring. Andre walked away unhurt, but the significant part here is a report in the same article that the new car may've run a lap 1.4 seconds faster than the pole time from 2013.
So that means we'll be looking possibly at the cars certainly being as fast, if not faster, than the old LMP1 machinery out of the gate, perhaps significantly faster.
The new cars are narrower in track and have narrower tires, but they're a bit lighter and probably have a lot more power both from the hybrid systems and the engines themselves. And the second system that Audi are now testing sounds a lot like what the ACO/FIA discouraged Audi from running on the R18 last year, so imagine how much faster that car could've been last year with both systems on it--certainly could've cancelled out a lot of the limits of the 120km/h limiter on front wheel drive hybrids.
And, reportedly, Audi weren't running the second hybrid system in a fully operational mode...
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