Audi will not compete at Le Mans 24 Hours to focus on Formula E
-time Le Mans winners Audi have announced that their World Endurance Championship campaign will end this season after a decision was taken to withdraw the German manufacturer from sportscar racing altogether.
Having dominated the Le Mans 24 Hours for the last 18 years, Audi confirmed on Wednesday that it will cease its WEC programme to instead take up a factory-backed commitment to Formula E, the all-electric series that is growing in both interest and manufacturer backing.
Audi join the likes of Citroen, Renault and most recently Jaguar to give its full support to Formula E, while current Formula 1 world champions Mercedes will enter the sport with a space reserved for them in the 2018/19 season.
Audi won the Le Mans 24 Hours for five consecutive years between 2010 and 2014, with the trio of Marcel Fassler, Andre Lotterer and Benoit Treluyer taking a hat-trick of wins in 2011, 2012, and 2014. Ex-Formula 1 driver Allan McNish stand as the only Briton to win at Le Mans in an Audi, with his successes in 2008 — with Tom Kristensen and Rinaldo Capello — and 2013 — again with Kristensen and Frenchman Loic Duval — adding to his earlier success with Porsche in 1998.
The news is a blow for WEC given that a thrilling threeway championship is yet to conclude this season, with Audi rivalling both Porsche and Toyota in this season’s manufacturers’ championship where they currently trail Porsche by 59 points, with a maximum of 88 points still remaining across the final two races.
“After 18 years in prototype racing that were exceptionally successful for Audi, it’s obviously extremely hard to leave,” said Dr Wolfgang Ullrich, head of Audi Motorsport and a popular figure in the WEC paddock.
“Audi Sport Team Joest shaped the WEC during this period like no other team. I would like to express my thanks to our squad, to Reinhold Joest and his team, to the drivers, partners and sponsors for this extremely successful cooperation. It’s been a great time!”
The end of the programme sees Audi invest fully in their Formula E campaign, in which they have supported the Team ABT Schaeffler Audi Sport outfit since the series’ inception in 2014.
“We’re going to contest the race for the future on electric power,” said chairman of the board of management Rupert Stadler to the 300 motorsport employees. “As our production cars are becoming increasingly electric, our motorsport cars, as Audi’s technological spearheads, have to even more so.”
Audi were trailblazers at Le Mans, having become the first team to win the prestigious race with a TFSI (Turbocharged Fuel Stratified Injection) engine in 2001 and following that up with the first diesel-powered winning entry five years later. In 2012, Fassler, Lotterer and Treluyer drove the first hybrid powertrain car to victory at Le Mans, and the team won the WEC championship twice with their current R18 e-tron Quattro, along with nine consecutive American Le Mans Series titles.
Audi also confirmed that they will continue their participation in the DTM series, and are already looking to expand their support of Mattias Ekstrom’s campaign in the FIA World Rallycross Championship, with a view to introducing an allelectric car into the series. THE INDEPENDENT
Audi were trailblazers at Le Mans, having become the first team to win the prestigious race with a TFSI (Turbocharged Fuel Stratified Injection) engine in 2001 and following that up with the first dieselpowered winning entry five years later.