Audi has made history at Le Mans

IN 2006, the premium brand became the first manufacturer to win what is arguably the world’s toughest endurance race with diesel power. 2016 marks the tenth anniversary of this achievement. Today, the TDI engine is more efficient than ever before and part of a highly complex diesel-hybrid powertrain. Never before has an Audi LMP1 race car been as powerful and fuel-efficient as the current Audi R18.

The revolution, literally, came quietly. The ‘higher-further-faster’ of TDI power was heralded a decade ago with a sound that was unusual even to the ears of seasoned campaigners.

The Audi R10 TDI raced around the circuit so silently that it was near-imperceptible.

‘At high speed, even the wind noise was louder than that of the engine,’ said Le Mans legend Tom Kristensen who, with nine victories, clearly leads the all-time winners’ list of the 24-hour race. Driving and shifting according to the sound level from 2006 on was history in the LMP1 race car.

Technologically, Audi Sport, in preparation for the 2006 season, mastered its greatest challenge to date. A V12 TDI engine not only meant a new powertrain: ‘We had to come up with a new concept for the entire race car,” says Head of Audi Motorsport Dr Wolfgang Ullrich. “From the proportions of the race car and its weight distribution to airflow, the cooling air requirement and power transmission, everything was new, as torque and output surpassed anything we’d previously known.’

Audi Sport tested the diesel engine for Le Mans in collaboration with AUDI AG’s pre-production and production development. The 5.5-litre twelve-cylinder unit for use in racing was the first Audi diesel engine with an aluminium cylinder block.

The Audi R10 TDI completed its initial rollout on the Italian race track at Misano on 29 November 2005. Exactly 200 days later, the diesel-powered sports car competed in the Le Mans 24 Hours and won. In between, 30,000 test kilometres, plus another 1,500 hours of testing the V12 TDI engine on dynamometers, were clocked up. Frank Biela/Emanuele Pirro/Marco Werner (D/I/D) crossed the finish line after 380 laps as the winners having covered 5,187 kilometres in the process. In the two subsequent years, the TDI engine from Ingolstadt and Neckarsulm again came out on top against fierce diesel competition on both occasions.