[LM24] Audi plans for 2010 revealed

[chernaudi]

I doubt that Peugeot was using VTG this year. Audi refered to their VTG use in the Le Mans win PR. Peugeot's engine developments centered it seemed on a new design of connecting rod that failed at LM.

Audi's drivers said that the R15 tended to have better throttle response than the 2009 R15 and certinaly the R10, and the VTG was likely responsible for that.

[gwyllion]

Peugeot never said whether they use VTG turbos or not. Audi did say that they tuned down the engine in Le Mans for reliablity.

Anyway this argument is pretty pointless because it is absolutely clear that Peugeot has the most powerfull engine irrespectively of the turbo used; the con rods were too weak for 24 hours flat out racing.

[manthey]

Maybe I'm wrong but I remember someone on this forum wrote about also peugeot has VTG....if I'm right Garrett is the peugeot's supplier (borgwarner for audi)

[gwyllion]

Audi also use Honeywell (Garrett) turbos. See http://honeywellbooster.com/booster-...new-turbo-era/

In fact for a lot of key components Audi and Peugeot use the same suppliers: Bosch for electronics and common rail injection, Mahle for (steel) pistons, Honeywell/Garrett for turbos, Dow for particulate filters.

[manthey]

Originally Posted by gwyllion

Audi also use Honeywell (Garrett) turbos. See http://honeywellbooster.com/booster-...new-turbo-era/

In fact for a lot of key components Audi and Peugeot use the same suppliers: Bosch for electronics and common rail injection, Mahle for (steel) pistons, Honeywell/Garrett for turbos, Dow for particulate filters.

yes it was my mistake,honeywell is the correct one

[MihokS5]

Originally Posted by gwyllion

Peugeot never said whether they use VTG turbos or not. Audi did say that they tuned down the engine in Le Mans for reliablity.

Anyway this argument is pretty pointless because it is absolutely clear that Peugeot has the most powerfull engine irrespectively of the turbo used; the con rods were too weak for 24 hours flat out racing.

Of course the V12 will be more powerful. It's pointless to claim having the most powerful engine when 3 of your 4 cars' engines fail though. Peugeot obviously was trying to compensate for the R15s improved speed and over tuned those engines causing the failure. With the newer regulations calling for less boost and smaller restrictors, those engines should never have been putting out that much power for a 24 hour race.

[Mike_Wooshy]

But isnt that the point of sportscar racing? Audi decided to go down an aero advantage route .... which was smart but I cant help a little pointless as it was completely changed for the second year and is going to be redundant after its 3rd year. While Peugeot went down engine route feeling their car had enough aero, this ultimately was pointless as they failed before the end of the race.

[MihokS5]

Originally Posted by Mike_Wooshy

But isnt that the point of sportscar racing? Audi decided to go down an aero advantage route .... which was smart but I cant help a little pointless as it was completely changed for the second year and is going to be redundant after its 3rd year. While Peugeot went down engine route feeling their car had enough aero, this ultimately was pointless as they failed before the end of the race.

I'd agree with that and also think that the 908's aero needed no changing at all. So I understand them wanting to squeeze more power out of the engine...

[chernaudi]

And we gotta remember that, especially at LM, that the original R15's areo concept was flawed and didn't work, so irrespective of rules changes, Audi was going to ditch the channel concept anyways.

And we also have to remember when Peugeot went with a new spec engine for LM. At Paul Ricard, the Audi for once had a speed advantage over the 908 in a straightline-about 3mph or so. At the time, both the Oreca and factory 908s were using 2009 engines adapted to the new regs. We don't know if that speed advantage on the Mistral was because the R15 got a better launch off that corner (aero/handling or the VTG) or that Audi found something in their engines for top end power, but the 908 was consistantly slightly slower most of the weekend in all three sectors-not slow enough to cause worry in a sprint race on a fairy short track, but Audi showed that with the R10 you can have a competitive car on a shorter track but be a fair bit off the pace at Le Mans.

That being considered, Peugeot feared that Audi by ditching the channel bodywork and doing a ton of engine work to get back what they lost (and likely then some) that Audi may actually be at least equal with them at Le Mans, and their performance at Paul Ricard and Spa seemed to confirm that. However, it seemed that Peugeot breathed a temporary sigh of relief when the Audis were well off the pace during the first practice session.

However it seemed that tensions rose during the secong practice day when Audi sliced that gap in half. The basic fact is that Audi had a much better car than in '09 and that the Pug was a 4 year old design that now was being pushed to its limits. And one could even say that Peugeot took an unnecessary risk by pushing their lead car when it had a lap in a half lead, causing the first engine failure.

Peugeot made a gamble at LM that their modified engines could be pushed for 24 Hours based on 10-11 successful 30 hour tests, just as Audi had hoped that they could've gotten their ALMS oriented channel car to work at LM. Both failed to succeed on both counts, which was espcially bad for Peugeot, as they had the faster cars and should've been more reliable based on those endurance tests.

What has me worried about Peugeot is that Audi knows that they can push thei R15 for all it's worth in a 1000km or 1000mile race based on their endurance testing and LM performance. Peugeot has had a lot of stuff go wrong this year--even discounting the tub and engine failures at LM, and the freak air jack failure at Pual Ricard, the cars have had electical problems and gearbox issues at LM and Hungaroring.

Anyone think that Audi has Peugeot worried, or is Peugeot just reaching too far to keep their edge?

[Mal]

Originally Posted by chernaudi

And we gotta remember that, especially at LM, that the original R15's areo concept was flawed and didn't work, so irrespective of rules changes, Audi was going to ditch the channel concept anyways.

And we also have to remember when Peugeot went with a new spec engine for LM. At Paul Ricard, the Audi for once had a speed advantage over the 908 in a straightline-about 3mph or so. At the time, both the Oreca and factory 908s were using 2009 engines adapted to the new regs. We don't know if that speed advantage on the Mistral was because the R15 got a better launch off that corner (aero/handling or the VTG) or that Audi found something in their engines for top end power, but the 908 was consistantly slightly slower most of the weekend in all three sectors-not slow enough to cause worry in a sprint race on a fairy short track, but Audi showed that with the R10 you can have a competitive car on a shorter track but be a fair bit off the pace at Le Mans.

That being considered, Peugeot feared that Audi by ditching the channel bodywork and doing a ton of engine work to get back what they lost (and likely then some) that Audi may actually be at least equal with them at Le Mans, and their performance at Paul Ricard and Spa seemed to confirm that. However, it seemed that Peugeot breathed a temporary sigh of relief when the Audis were well off the pace during the first practice session.

However it seemed that tensions rose during the secong practice day when Audi sliced that gap in half. The basic fact is that Audi had a much better car than in '09 and that the Pug was a 4 year old design that now was being pushed to its limits. And one could even say that Peugeot took an unnecessary risk by pushing their lead car when it had a lap in a half lead, causing the first engine failure.

Peugeot made a gamble at LM that their modified engines could be pushed for 24 Hours based on 10-11 successful 30 hour tests, just as Audi had hoped that they could've gotten their ALMS oriented channel car to work at LM. Both failed to succeed on both counts, which was espcially bad for Peugeot, as they had the faster cars and should've been more reliable based on those endurance tests.

What has me worried about Peugeot is that Audi knows that they can push thei R15 for all it's worth in a 1000km or 1000mile race based on their endurance testing and LM performance. Peugeot has had a lot of stuff go wrong this year--even discounting the tub and engine failures at LM, and the freak air jack failure at Pual Ricard, the cars have had electical problems and gearbox issues at LM and Hungaroring.

Anyone think that Audi has Peugeot worried, or is Peugeot just reaching too far to keep their edge?

Remember all those engine failures were well after the length of the longest race still to be run so theoretically Peugeot can still run at its fast pace and last the race.

Audi's strongest suit has always been its strength and reliability - its whole brand is built on it.

[chernaudi]

What irks me is that the 908's a four year old design, and this year they've broken a lot of stuff--I can't think of the last time a 908 has had gearbox trouble with the internals...2007? And I think that LM '08 was the last time that a 908 had a gearshift problem(one of these failures befell the Oreca 908 at Hungaroring).

And we have to remember that Audi detuned their engines at LM to prevent what happened to Peugeot from happening to them. And at LM, the 908s started to have mechanical issues before the 1000km mark in that race. That's what has me worried about Peugeot, as well as the fact that the R15, by some Peugeot drivers' own admission, may be better suited for the ILMC circuits.

[Victor_RO]

Originally Posted by chernaudi

What irks me is that the 908's a four year old design, and this year they've broken a lot of stuff--I can't think of the last time a 908 has had gearbox trouble with the internals...2007? And I think that LM '08 was the last time that a 908 had a gearshift problem(one of these failures befell the Oreca 908 at Hungaroring).

And we have to remember that Audi detuned their engines at LM to prevent what happened to Peugeot from happening to them. And at LM, the 908s started to have mechanical issues before the 1000km mark in that race. That's what has me worried about Peugeot, as well as the fact that the R15, by some Peugeot drivers' own admission, may be better suited for the ILMC circuits.

I'm not sure the Peugeot gearbox was necessarily built for the tight confines of the Hungaroring and the number of gearshifts needed on that track. Also, if we take the freak suspension failure out of the equation at Le Mans, the first technical problem (alternator on #1) was during the dark, so it has to be after 9 PM and the 6-hour mark (1000km on the main Le Mans track at that pace is probably under 5 hours), and the driveshaft issues on the Oreca Pug (which, if I remember correctly, were due to the car being hit by another car in the wheel itself) were during the depths of the night, possibly around half-way.

[chernaudi]

Still, if Audi is in a position to seriously push the Pugs, I have some doubt that at least one car won't make it the full 1000km without an issue, be it mechanical or driver-error releated. One would believe that the 908, with the air restrictor and turbo boost cuts would be if anything more reliable. It was said that the 908 was designed from the beginning to have a high-reving diesel engine (5500-6000 rpm), while the Audi diesels used production car based rev limits (4500-5500 rpm).

I think that a lot of stuff on the 908 was designed to the limit to begin with, and when you try to milk more out of something that's near the limit to begin with, you're gonna have problems.

And we have to remember that in a pre-LM interview that while Montangny said that Audi had little chance at LM, he expected them to be much stronger at the ILMC races because of the R15's ALMS/LMS orienteted features.

[gwyllion]

I don't understand your argument about the rev limit. The Peugeot engine may have a narrower power band, but that is a design choice because they have an extra gear compared to Audi.

Originally Posted by chernaudi

And we have to remember that in a pre-LM interview that while Montangny said that Audi had little chance at LM, he expected them to be much stronger at the ILMC races because of the R15's ALMS/LMS orienteted features.

Do you have a link for that interview?

[chernaudi]

It's probably on endurance-info (I know for sure it's linked in the LM24 thread), and it's the one where Franck was criticized on this board for hubris and downplaying the threat that Audi posed.

Link: http://www.endurance-info.com/versio...ance-4629.html

He basically says that the R15 was built for the ALMS and sprint races. How wrong was he proven in the end?

[manthey]

car magazine interviews McNish

http://www.carmagazine.co.uk/News/Se...-Allan-McNish/

[Acid09]

Originally Posted by chernaudi

He basically says that the R15 was built for the ALMS and sprint races. How wrong was he proven in the end?

Not at all, Audi won Le Mans purely by reliability, not speed.

[MihokS5]

Originally Posted by Acid09

Not at all, Audi won Le Mans purely by reliability, not speed.

Reliability was the deciding factor - which is the also the most important factor in a 24 hour race,but the R15 Plus was also fast.
If the Pugs didn't have their engines running on 10 cases of Red Bull and had them tuned right, they would not have seemed that much faster all weekend.
The R15 was clearly just as fast if your compare how both cars performed at PR and Spa...

[chernaudi]

Originally Posted by Acid09

Not at all, Audi won Le Mans purely by reliability, not speed.

The speed of the Audi is what lead Peugeot to max out the engine based on how Audi did against the Oreca Pug (same spec as the factory cars at Sebring aside from LM aero), which was out ran much of the weekend, and at Spa, where the Audis in race trim was as fast as the 908 in the dry in spite of the low downforce LM areo the Audis ran. If Audi ran a higher downforce package similar to Peugeot (as Audi plans on doing for the ILMC), Peugeot would've had a much harder time at Spa than they did.

Simon Pagenalud didn't down play the Audi threat when interviewed like Montangny did, and Simon expected Audi to be a serious threat and keep Peugeot honest. Audi detuned their engines for LM because of the expected pace and no real threat of rain.

In '07 and especially '08, the rain cost Peugeot the LM24, but it also allowed them to finish those races. Otherwise, the Pugs likely would've DNF'd with engine problems caused by overheating in those years.

In '09, Peugeot costed the second half the race as the Audi threat faded due to new car mechanical problems.

It's hard to put the blame on one thing for Peugeot's LM disaster: the rod design or material is the obvious place, but when you can go 1-3 seconds a lap faster on average, why show all your cards early. I think that Peugeot went on their last charge too early, and when the #2 blew up, Montangny was told to up his pace because the Audis were running equal lap times. That began a pattern for Peugeot: up the lap times before a green flag stop, make said pit stop, and the engines threw a rod during the out lap.

That said, Audi admitted that they detuned their engines to make it a full all out 24 hours. Peugeot gambled, like always, on more power. However, more power means more stress on the engine, and if there's a weak link, and the rods were already in 30 hour test at Paul Ricard and Magny-Cours (neither of which really replicate LM's sustained high RPM and lack Sebring's bumps) on the limit, they'd undoubtely fail at LM.

Peugeot's cars can make it in a 1000km race with their LM engines. However, Audi, like at Spa and Paul Ricard will have their V10s running at full power, since they know that they'll easily last that long or longer, and Peugeot has in effect detuned their engines to Sebring/PR spec by going back to the steel rods. Peugeot's engine seems to thrive on revs as far as a diesel engine (torque curve? Also maybe why the Pugs need a 6 speed gearbox instead of the Audi 5 speed?), and that's one of the things that killed them at Le Mans.

Audi, with a sprint race areo package and running on full power and with Peugeot running basically 2009 spec engines to make it last, should be more competitive than at Le Mans, where their consistant pace utimately forced Peugeot to up the ante, and destroy themselves.

[Mal]

Originally Posted by chernaudi

The speed of the Audi is what lead Peugeot to max out the engine based on how Audi did against the Oreca Pug (same spec as the factory cars at Sebring aside from LM aero), which was out ran much of the weekend, and at Spa, where the Audis in race trim was as fast as the 908 in the dry in spite of the low downforce LM areo the Audis ran. If Audi ran a higher downforce package similar to Peugeot (as Audi plans on doing for the ILMC), Peugeot would've had a much harder time at Spa than they did.

Simon Pagenalud didn't down play the Audi threat when interviewed like Montangny did, and Simon expected Audi to be a serious threat and keep Peugeot honest. Audi detuned their engines for LM because of the expected pace and no real threat of rain.

In '07 and especially '08, the rain cost Peugeot the LM24, but it also allowed them to finish those races. Otherwise, the Pugs likely would've DNF'd with engine problems caused by overheating in those years.

In '09, Peugeot costed the second half the race as the Audi threat faded due to new car mechanical problems.

It's hard to put the blame on one thing for Peugeot's LM disaster: the rod design or material is the obvious place, but when you can go 1-3 seconds a lap faster on average, why show all your cards early. I think that Peugeot went on their last charge too early, and when the #2 blew up, Montangny was told to up his pace because the Audis were running equal lap times. That began a pattern for Peugeot: up the lap times before a green flag stop, make said pit stop, and the engines threw a rod during the out lap.

That said, Audi admitted that they detuned their engines to make it a full all out 24 hours. Peugeot gambled, like always, on more power. However, more power means more stress on the engine, and if there's a weak link, and the rods were already in 30 hour test at Paul Ricard and Magny-Cours (neither of which really replicate LM's sustained high RPM and lack Sebring's bumps) on the limit, they'd undoubtely fail at LM.

Peugeot's cars can make it in a 1000km race with their LM engines. However, Audi, like at Spa and Paul Ricard will have their V10s running at full power, since they know that they'll easily last that long or longer, and Peugeot has in effect detuned their engines to Sebring/PR spec by going back to the steel rods. Peugeot's engine seems to thrive on revs as far as a diesel engine (torque curve? Also maybe why the Pugs need a 6 speed gearbox instead of the Audi 5 speed?), and that's one of the things that killed them at Le Mans.

Audi, with a sprint race areo package and running on full power and with Peugeot running basically 2009 spec engines to make it last, should be more competitive than at Le Mans, where their consistant pace utimately forced Peugeot to up the ante, and destroy themselves.

So to summarise - it should be one heck of a race

[manthey]

how much is the cost of an audi r15+ o peugeot 908hdi? around 1,5 / 2mln €?
a gt2 rsr porsche and f430 are around 400.000€...I guess a porsche rs spyder is 600.000-800.000€ right?just curious to know...

[chernaudi]

When new, a Porsche RS Spyder cost $1.5 million USD--a new Audi R8 was probably cheaper, and only god know what an R15 or 908 would cost. I think one should ask Hughes de Chanauc from Oreca how much a second hand (but factory updated) 908 cost...

[carsten66]

Originally Posted by chernaudi

When new, a Porsche RS Spyder cost $1.5 million USD--a new Audi R8 was probably cheaper, and only god know what an R15 or 908 would cost. I think one should ask Hughes de Chanauc from Oreca how much a second hand (but factory updated) 908 cost...

Yes, that's correct... and a Porsche 911 GT3 RSR starts from 350,000 EUR, an Audi R8 in race version from 260,000 EUR, plus sales tax...

[gwyllion]

Originally Posted by carsten66

an Audi R8 in race version from 260,000 EUR, plus sales tax...

298,000 EUR (+ VAT) according to http://www.audi.com/com/brand/en/too...evolution.html

[gwyllion]

The high downforce package of the R15+ has only minor changes. The nose has 2 dive planes:
http://pitlane-vision.com/images/sto.../10.09/1/2.jpg
http://pitlane-vision.com/images/sto.../10.09/1/3.jpg