Audi Almost Unbeatable At Le Mans For More Than A Decade
Audi AG is based in Ingolstadt, Germany. They make a range of automobiles in many styles, including suburban utility vehicles (SUVs). They have a number of Le Mans championships under their belt. Their success in motoring may partly be attributed to the Audi transmission. Autosport Werks at AutosportWerks.com have more information.
The ’24 Hours of Le Mans’ is a sports car endurance race that has been held in France since 1923. Known affectionately as the Grand Prix of Endurance and Efficiency, it is the oldest such race in the world. The race is run for twenty-four straight hours, both day and night, with the teams of drivers rotating at approximately two-hour intervals. The winner is the team that has completed the most laps at the end of 24 hours. The track on which the race is run is the Circuit de la Sarthe. It contains a mixture of public roads that are closed for the event as well as stretches of specialist motor racing circuit.
Their first win at Le Mans occurred in July 2000.
The car was the Quattro racing in the LMP900 class with an R8 chassis and a 3.6 liter turbo V8 engine. The drivers for Team Joest were Frank Biela of Germany, Tom Kristensen from Denmark and Italian Emanuel Pirro. Altogether, the team managed 368 laps. The company scored a hat trick that year, having also taken second and third place with 367 and 365 laps, respectively. All three teams drove R8s with the same engine specification. Overall, the R8 won five out of the seven races it competed in at Le Mans.
The winning combination of Biela, Kristensen and Pirro took first place at Lemans in 2001, driving an R8 Quattro chassis powered by the 3.6L turbo V8.
On that occasion they won the race with 321 laps. Their North American counterparts took second place in a similar motor with 320 laps. They repeated their success the following year, scoring 375 laps. This was the first time that the same set of three drivers won the competition three years in a row.
The company took a year out of endurance racing in 2003 but won again in 2004 with Sport Japan’s Team Goh, comprising Kristensen, Seiji Ara from Japan and Rinaldo Capello from Italy. They accumulated 379 laps in a Class LMP1 Quattro R8. Their Sport UK Team Veloqx took second place, also with 379 laps.
Le Mans 2005 was a good year for Tom Kristensen, who drove for American Team ADT Championship Racing for a record of seven victories, six of which were uninterrupted.
Audi Playstation Team Oreca had to settle for fourth place. It was a very hot year with many mechanical failures, and Team Oreca could only manage 362 laps compared with ADT’s 370.
Team Joest regained momentum and took first place with 380 laps in 2006. This time they drove an R10 TDI Chassis with a TDI 5.5L Diesel Turbo V12. German Marco Werner replaced Tom Kristensen, who drove with Capello and Alan McNish to take third place for Team Joest with 367 laps.
Team Joest won again in 2007 and 2008.
They were beaten the following two years. They won again in 2011, despite McNish having crashed one vehicle soon after the start of the race.
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