Audi sticks with oilers for 2011 Le Mans

Audi has secured top spot on the podium at Le Mans nine times during the last decade, so they've clearly been getting something right.

The company will have its fingers crossed that the winning tradition continues with the R18 LMP1 Le Mans prototype. Front-on, the new car looks like an arachnid nightmare, or a rejected Mattel design. But if recent history is anything to go by, the R18 LMP1 stands a good chance of putting paid to the ugly-stick jokes come the 2011 endurance racing season.

With rule changes forcing substantial power reductions on the teams in the coming year, they've been more attentive than ever to factors beyond the engine bay, to extract every little bit of energy efficiency they can from within it. For Audi, that means reducing its turbodiesel powerplant proportions from a 5.5-litre V10 to a modest 3.7-litre V6.

The downsizing is nothing new. In fact, this third-generation TDI engine is just the latest increment in a trend that Audi embarked on almost immediately after it first oil-powered win at Le Mans in 2006, in an R10 TDI running a 485 kW, 5.5-litre V12. In 2009 came the R15, which saw no change in displacement but cut the cylinder count down to a V10. With each generation, power output goes down nominally but up in relation to the size of the mill. The R15 extracts around 450 kW; the R18 retains nearly 90 per cent of that despite four fewer pots and a 30 per cent reduction in displacement.

And all the time, the cars get lighter and the drag coefficients go down. The R18 weighs just 900kg, and with this engine good for around 400kW and nestling in a super-slippery one-piece carbonfibre monocoque, it has the power-to-weight figures to work up a decent head of steam down the Mulsanne straight.

The R18 marks the end of a decade of open-top designs -- it's the first car since 1999's R8C to enclose the driver -- a source of some regret for Audi's motorsport chief, Dr Wolfgang Ullrich. "The rules mean you have to have a roof to be competitive," he told European media. "Driver changes are always easier with open cars, but the changes have taken that away.

"It breaks my heart because I love the open cars. But the expectations we have of this car are very high and it looks great." (Ed: To its father, anyway) Part of its gloriously awful front-end effect comes from its headlight clusters, with the R18 the first car of its kind to use full-LED lighting. It represents another incremental advance on the R15, which used LEDs in the low-beam phase. It's a sign of the role racing plays in product development -- be sure the technology will turn up in the headlamp clusters of civilian Audis to come.

Ditto the battery. Nothing's been announced about this, but with the R15 using a li-ion battery, it would come as something of a surprise if they stepped backwards with the R18 -- particularly with the work they're putting into hybrids, plug-ins and EVs. That's an area in which Audi has been busy on numerous fronts of late, as evidenced at its November Tech Day event at Ingolstadt. Much of its range of prototypes went on display, including all-electric e-tron versions of its R8 and A1 and a parallel-hybrid Q5, with plenty of tech detail on offer about a hydrogen fuel-cell powered Q5 as well.

It's likely all that work will eventually put some form of hybrid package in future race cars, but for now, Ullrich remained mum on the matter, saying only that it's not out of the question. He used the R18 reveal to confirm that for the foreseeable future, the company's racing stocks remain with its hugely successful oilers. "We believe the TDI engines are the most efficient, so it was very clear that we would use them at Le Mans," he said.

The R18 will debut at the Spa-Francorchamps 6 Hours round of the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup in Belgium in May. Audi's Sport Team Joest will then take a trio of the cars to Le Mans, the Imola 6 Hours, Silverstone 6 Hours, Petit Le Mans and China 6 Hours.

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