[LM24] Audi plans for 2010 revealed

[gwyllion]

Their official program is the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup: http://www.audi.com/com/brand/en/exp..._mans_cup.html

• September 12, 2010: 1000 km Silverstone (GB)
• October 2, 2010: 1000 miles Petit Le Mans (USA)
• November 7, 2010: 1000 km Zhuhai (RC)

[ger80]

Originally Posted by gwyllion

That fuel consumption figure is completely bogus.
It is an overview of the last pitstops by the #9 car according to Audi Sport race facts.
A normal stint is around 40 minutes. The last 2 stops were early because of a slow puncture and the formation stop with the 2 other Audis. During these stops the tank was only half empty, so they could have done with one stop less. The car started the race with a full tank (minus one warmup lap) and during the race it was completely refueled 32 times.

33 * 81 liter / 5410.713 km = 49.4 liter/100 km.

Perhaps the PR people just made a typo and the fuel economy was 49.43 liter/100 km instead of 43.43.

Thanks for checking the details

[gwyllion]

Some paddock rumors by John Brooks:

Rumours also abounded in the paddock about the senior management at Audi, a comprehensive defeat along the lines of the results from Qualifying could bring out a demand for change. There had been undercurrents detected if you knew where to search, would the new prototype project from the Volkswagen Group come from Audi or Porsche? Maybe it was time to go back to the basics of the brands with Porsche re-inventing itself as a purely performance car company, no more trucks or saloons, a return to "Excellence was Expected".

source: http://speedhunters.com/archive/2010...lane-view.aspx

It seems the poor reliability of Peugeot might have saved the Audi's future in LMP racing.

[gwyllion]

Originally Posted by gwyllion

The post Le Mans press release of Audi reveals a secret: the R15+ V10 TDI was fitted with a variable turbine geometry turbocharger!

FYI. A technical discussion about the advantage of VTG turbochargers in a racing diesel: http://forums.autosport.com/index.php?showtopic=131006

BTW the discussion confirms that Audi also uses Mahle steel pistons in the R15 engine.

[gucom]

Originally Posted by gwyllion

That fuel consumption figure is completely bogus.
It is an overview of the last pitstops by the #9 car according to Audi Sport race facts.
A normal stint is around 40 minutes. The last 2 stops were early because of a slow puncture and the formation stop with the 2 other Audis. During these stops the tank was only half empty, so they could have done with one stop less. The car started the race with a full tank (minus one warmup lap) and during the race it was completely refueled 32 times.

33 * 81 liter / 5410.713 km = 49.4 liter/100 km.

Perhaps the PR people just made a typo and the fuel economy was 49.43 liter/100 km instead of 43.43.

not necessarily. Your calculations assume they were just 1 drop shy of running out of fuel, every time they reached the pits. 398 laps divided by 33 fuel-ups is 12.06 laps per fuel-up on average. but each of those fuel-ups, there was some fuel left in the tank, although presumably not enough to make it another full lap. So they could've gone for an average of 12.something laps per fuel-up, but not quite make it to 13. So their consumption would be expected to be somewhere inbetween 49.4 litre / 100km and (398/13)= 30.6 * 81 litres / 5410.713 = 45.83 liter/100km

so either there were several stints where they could've done more than a full extra lap before pitting, but for some reason decided to pit earlier than mandated by the fuel tank, or the figure provided by Audi is indeed bogus, but not as much bogus as your figures suggest.

[gwyllion]

Yes, they had some reserve in the tank, but the 43.43 liter/100 km is clearly wrong.

43.43 liter/100 km * 5410.713 km = 2350 liter for the complete race
2350 liter / 33 tank stops = 71.2 liter fuel every pitstop

That would mean that they left 10 liter in the tank, which is good for almost 2 laps.

[gwyllion]

Originally Posted by gwyllion

Le Mans highlights on http://tv.audi.com/video/12785

Another Le Mans video on http://tv.audi.com/video/13107

[chernaudi]

Anyone believe that Audi may run 1 or 2 cars at Hungaroring to get their second car classifed for the LMIC and to test for the LMIC? Also, anyone believe that Audi may've skipped Algarve for PR reasons-after all, Audi own an engine factrory that also builds Audi TTs in Gyor.

[gwyllion]

The wrong choice of tires on the winning No. 9 Audi almost put the No. 8 R15 plus in Victory Lane. After the No. 9 suffered with harder tires than needed for two-and-a-half stints, the No. 8 was able to claw back gobs of time. It flustered Romain Dumas enough to cause the Frenchman to over-drive the No. 9, and emotions ran especially high in the car and over the radio. He eventually composed himself and the team went on to win, but there was a real question as to which Audi would come home first late in the game.

http://auto-racing.speedtv.com/artic...iple-stint-78/

[Mike_Wooshy]

so the Audi drivers got flustered under there own pressure not good team work one can assume

[chernaudi]

Not to mention that the 8, especially with Lotterer behind the wheel, was the fastest Audi(though not by much, but perhaps enough that if it weren't for the damaged noses that car had, the story may've ended differently).

Since Audi had a more balance line up and rumors of shuffling drivers around(namely that Dindo Capello may retire or semi-retire at the end of the ILMC season this year), could Audi throw enough money or incentives for Andre and/or Ben to ditch Super GT and go fulltime sportscar racing?

[chernaudi]

I was bored last night when I remembered that the Peugeot 908's bore and stroke measurements were 84x82mm. I then decided to try and figure our what the bore and stroke would approx. be for a 5.5 V10 diesel.

What I came up with is that if the Audi R15's V10 is an oversquare design like the Peugeot engine, the bore and stroke could be somewhere along the lines of 90x88.5mm. Basically, the Bore is between roughly 88.5 and 90mm and the stroke is between 88.5 and 90mm.

Remember, the area/capacity of a cylinder is Pi times radius of the bore squared times the stroke, and to get the capacity, you multiply the cylinder capacity by the number of cylinders. The area/capacity of that cylinder (90x88.5) times 10= roughly 335 cubic inches, which when converted into metric= 5.5 liters.

Clearly, the diesels are probably oversquare to get them to rev more, but the measurements aren't that far from being perfectly square.

So expect for the Audi V10 to possibly be oversqure, but like the Peugot V12, don't expect it to be by much. Or could it be undersqure, considering how short the engine is, though that doesn't matter as it s purpose built engine and could still be square or oversquare--All Audi racing engines are derived from revised designs for the R8's 3.6 TFSI V8, and that engine was heavy and overbuilt for what it was, but then again, it never broke in race conditions. Maybe Audi used the FSI V8 as a test for the V12 and V10 diesels, considering that direct injection combined with turbocharging equals diesel like compression ratios.

[Victor_RO]

Audi driver line-ups for the ILMC revealed:

http://www.lemans.org/fr/actualites/...ages_1602.html

Silverstone:

#7 - Tom Kristensen/Allan McNish
#8 - Dindo Capello/Timo Bernhard

PLM:

#7 - Dindo Capello/Tom Kristensen/Allan McNish
#9 - Marcel Fassler/Andre Lotterer/Benoit Treluyer

Zhuhai:

#7 - Tom Kristensen/Allan McNish
#8 - Dindo Capello/Romain Dumas

Main absentee from the Le Mans line-up (Rocky) is because of DTM commitments.

[trahsub]

Sounds like the guys doing Muscle Milk RS Spyder work may be helping out with PLM, considering their absence in the R15.

[Victor_RO]

Originally Posted by trahsub

Sounds like the guys doing Muscle Milk RS Spyder work may be helping out with PLM, considering their absence in the R15.

Timo and Romain? There was a news story a few weeks ago (at least that's what I remember) about them being in the GT3-R hybrid for Petit.

[gwyllion]

Full press release in English: http://www.audi.com/com/brand/en/exp...i_embarks.html

Strange to see Dumas in Zhuhai. I expected him to drive the hybrid Porsche in that race.

[HORNDAWG]

Originally Posted by gwyllion

Full press release in English: http://www.audi.com/com/brand/en/exp...i_embarks.html

Strange to see Dumas in Zhuhai. I expected him to drive the hybrid Porsche in that race.

The Porsche release for Romain and Timo's "packed calander" does not mention driving the hybrid at all. ???
It does mention some Rally stuff though. Hmm...





L.P.

[cmk]

Originally Posted by trahsub

Sounds like the guys doing Muscle Milk RS Spyder work may be helping out with PLM, considering their absence in the R15.

Pickett himself is hoping to be fit enough to drive at PLM (no offense intended to Greg but I kind of hope this is not the case) so it is conceivable that there will be only one seat available in the #6 - maybe 0 if Memo Gidley returns too?

[HORNDAWG]

Originally Posted by cmk

Pickett himself is hoping to be fit enough to drive at PLM (no offense intended to Greg but I kind of hope this is not the case) so it is conceivable that there will be only one seat available in the #6 - maybe 0 if Memo Gidley returns too?

I highly doubt we see Greg in the car at Petit. At the minimum it will be Klaus, Sasha and Memo with the potential of werks help.




L.P.

[chernaudi]

I don't know about Pickett--Doctors say his back injury was misdiagnosed and is an old injury.

Back to Audi, I can't say I'm entirely surprised that Allan and TK are a team--Audi have said that they'd rather have them on a team rather than race each other if possible. Surprised that Rocky isn't really involved, since he had a full season sportscar ride for Audi, but Rocky is high up in the DTM standings this year, and Audi probably doesn't want to derail that. But it's good to see Audi giving all their LM drivers aside from Rocky at least one shot at the R15 this year.

Audi also says that they've developed a sprint/high downforce spec version of the R15 in that PR. Did they change the bodywork or just tack on a lot of gurneys and diveplanes?

[gwyllion]

Originally Posted by chernaudi

Back to Audi, I can't say I'm entirely surprised that Allan and TK are a team--Audi have said that they'd rather have them on a team rather than race each other if possible.

In the past years (ALMS 2006-2007, LMS 2008) McNish has always formed a duo with Capello. So for me it is bit strange that they are seperated...

Originally Posted by chernaudi

Audi also says that they've developed a sprint/high downforce spec version of the R15 in that PR. Did they change the bodywork or just tack on a lot of gurneys and diveplanes?

The wording of the press release does not suggest a completely new bodywork: "the aerodynamics package has been trimmed for higher downforce".

[cmk]

There are two possible reasons for splitting up McNish and Capello. One is that Audi believes Nishy and TK will be the most potent lineup on overall pace; that is a reasonable supposition. The other is that Audi believes there is something about Capello - in or out of the car - that makes him ideal to work with relative Audi newbies Bernhard and Dumas. Audi's smart enough to know the strengths and weaknesses of their long-standing drivers as personalities and work with those, as both Allan McNish and Dr. Wolfgang Ulrich have previously intimated.

[chernaudi]

I didn't say that Audi changed the whole bodywork of the car, but Spa probably told them that they need a high downforce package to compete head to head with Peugeot in the ILMC races, especially Silverstone and Road Atlanta, let alone if they expect to be as fast as or faster than Peugeot. The decision to run LM-spec areo at Spa probably cost Audi a race win or at least a second there.

Also, I find it interesting that Audi intends to run LM 2011 with the same driver lineup in all three cars as this year. Sort of puts to rest Pruett's rumor of Audi attempting to shuffle the driver lineup for 2011, just like how he said that the R15 has understeer problems--from what I've seen (and Speed touched on this at Le Mans) is that the R15 has oversteer problems in slow corners that maybe the high downforce spec might help, certianly in faster corners.

Also, Audi's drivers have always said that compared to the R10, the R15 is more neutral/oversteery, especially in slower corners like the R8 was.

[CTD]

What surprises me is that Tom K and Capello isn't driving together!, those two are best friends, and it was with Capello Tom K won his most hard earned victories at Le Mans.
But then again, Capello is a smooth rythm driver, which is an ideal partner for any new comers, as the car will be more stable.

All i hope is just that Tom K and McNish have become friends enough to drive the car without trashing each other, as Capello no longer can be the buffer between.

[carsten66]

Originally Posted by Victor_RO

Timo and Romain? There was a news story a few weeks ago (at least that's what I remember) about them being in the GT3-R hybrid for Petit.

Yes indeed fact: Timo Bernhard, Romain Dumas and Mike Rockenfeller will drive as teammates the Porsche 911 GT3 R Hybrid at PLM...