MOTORSPORT: Le Mans most relevant

Eight-time Le Mans winner Tom Kristensen is one of motorsport's unsung heroes. In a world where world championships don't necessarily count, he is quite simply the best. As Audi Sport's leading Le Mans driver he is the team's go-to man -- on and off the racetrack.

Kristensen's vehicle development skills have been used to help hone a generation of Audi race cars -- high performance road cars too. With literally hundreds of thousands of racing and testing miles under his belt he has a unique perspective on the relationship between racing cars and the road.

It's this perspective that the Dane drew upon when we caught up with him at the recent launch of the all-new Audi A6 in New Zealand. A surprise guest to the event, Kristensen entertained the media both with seemingly impossible drift angles on South Island snow, and articulate and informed commentaries on competition and racing -- sportscar racing in particular.

Ask Kristensen if he believes if racing improves the breed and he has strong opinions. Ask him which competition arena is most likely to translate to benefits for the driver on the street and he's also adamant, if predictably biased towards 'his' field of expertise -- endurance racing.   

"Sportscar racing and Le Mans in particular makes a lot of sense for Audi because you're able to bring in new technologies [to the racetrack and prove them for the road]," Kristensen told motoring.com.au.

"That has been [the case] from the very beginning. If you go back to the, I think 1923 was the first Le Mans, and over these years we now have brake discs, and they evolved around Le Mans; windscreens wipers have evolved around Le Mans; even seat belts came from Le Mans. All these things came in a very 'romantic' time you can say, but also in a very dangerous time.

"This year you see there's quite a lot of technology about the light-weighting [of sportscars] which is perfectly [in alignment] to what we need to see [is required] today on the road cars.

"Even the A6 we see today is quite a lot lighter than the predecessor in the same category: that you don't see often. That comes again in a way from Le Mans, where we want to achieve a light chassis. You want to have it lighter than possible [according to the rules] so we can then place ballast to optimise the weight distribution of the car."

According to Kristensen, F1 and other categories' rules including Audi's other premier category DTM (German touring cars) do not allow the 'freeplay' to let manufacturers make major steps in development. Sportscar racing, he asserts, has promoted alternative approaches and will continue to do so...

"Over the years I've been with Audi, what have we benefitted from [race to road]? There is first of all FSI technology and you've seen [more recently] the TDI technology, which [on the racetrack] has given a platform that you can go for outright victory in completely new concepts [turbodiesel] which a few years before was not thought possible."

Kristensen offers other examples of the transfer of technology from Le Mans to road cars.

"TPMS system, or Tyre Pressure Monitoring System, has been [a racetrack-to-road] benefit... When it works at Le Mans it works everywhere, because the load that you have. You can imagine when you're doing 340km/h down the straight: first of all the wheels are turning quite fast; and the amount of downforce that you have at that speed... And still being able to maintain the correct pressure [reading]... To tell you the correct pressure, even then as you're standing still with it [in the pits]...

"Headlights -- if you watch Le Mans on television you'll be able to see [instantly] where the Audi is.  This year we had full xenon headlights -- I think five per side... The headlights are lighter... more efficient, so less drag on the electrical system and engine, and you have better vision.

"We went for the smaller [V6 turbodiesel] engine [this year], as you know... That's following road car trends to smaller and smaller engines... [And] We went from pneumatic gearbox [actuation] to electric [like the roadcar]."

Kristensen says there are many parallels between the racing R18 and his racing benefactor's road cars.

"I mean, it's fully parallel. And Audi's already looking beyond [to] what is the most efficient in the future. A lot of people speak about hybrid [for the track]; I'm sure some people look at hybrid as well in combination with all the things which come in for the future, but we will only go with what the most efficient for our road customers. And then we will make sure that that can work in racing as well."

Audi's advantage is the direct link between the race operation and the factory, says Kristensen.

"All the testing we do is by Audi Sport. So there's a direct link -- when the cars go back after testing, there's a direct link [from racetrack to road car development]. Basically it's on the same [plane] -- it's a part of the factory. The knowhow within what is a rather big facility can travel quite freely."

So does Kristensen think that Le Mans and the series it has spawned is the right place for Audi to spend so much of its undoubtedly substantial racing budget? 

"If you ask Dr [Wolfgang] Ullrich, my boss, I think he would say that. And the other thing he would say is that it is the most efficient; that it makes the most sense. It's [the class] open to any kind of innovative possibilities," Kristensen enthused.

"You can go and you can make an alternative [drivetrain or technology], and you will be sort of competitive... But first of all, Audi will present what will bring benefits for our customers. That's why we race.

"Okay, in DTM the cars are under very strict regulation, but people love to see it in Europe because they relate to the Audi A4 now -- and which will probably be an A5 in the future. But on the technology side, it's certainly in the sportscar and in the way of the regulation for Le Mans."

In 2012 the Le Mans series becomes a fully fledged world championship. Kristensen says it's a move in the right direction for Audi and the sport.

"It's what we have been lobbying for many years but I think it also quite rightly deserves the World Championship status. You can refer to Le Mans and the Le Mans series itself -- it's a very famous name in that sense -- but to add the FIA World Championship stamp to it is just very fitting. 

"We have this season gone globally with the ILMC, but to be honest the 'Intercontinental Le Mans Cup' doesn't sound quite right. But now it will be officially the World Championship and I think that's what everyone is really happy about, and I think that will attract [even more competition].

"Porsche will be there in 2014, which is great. Mr Piech [Volkswagen Audi Group scion] will always like to have the internal sort of group competition. That's very healthy because we are training engineers, we are training drivers, we are training everyone in that sense... And there will be other manufacturers coming at Le Mans when the timing is right, I'm sure."

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