Autosport 70: Audi’s historic title
1 November 2012
Audi trio Andre Lotterer, Benoit Treluyer and Marcel Fassler became the first world sportscar champions for two decades this week in 2012.
That year’s Le Mans winners travelled to the World Endurance Championship finale at Shanghai with a 16.5-point advantage over team-mates Allan Mcnish and Tom Kristensen. The championship leaders survived a clash with a slower car to come home third, one spot behind the other R18 e-tron quattro, to take the crown. It was the first time a world sportscar title had been awarded since Peugeot drivers Derek Warwick and Yannick Dalmas had triumphed in 1992.
The biggest interest in the race itself came from the pace of the Toyota
TS030 HYBRID, which had joined the series at Le Mans four months earlier. A combination of more downforce and better punch out of the corners in traffic gave Alexander Wurz and Nicolas
Lapierre an edge over the Audis. They duly took their third win of the season by nearly a minute.
Audi Sport boss Wolfgang Ullrich knew the German manufacturer would need to react if it was to retain its titles in 2013. “We know we have some points where we can improve,” he said. “We will react and we start tomorrow.” Audi would succeed, winning all the major WEC prizes the following year, including Le Mans.
Elsewhere in the 1 November issue of the magazine, we reviewed the British Touring Car Championship and Formula Renault 3.5 seasons. Gordon Shedden had taken the first of his three BTCC titles that year and pipped Jason Plato to first in our driver rankings, while FR3.5 champion Robin Frijns also topped the season review top 10. Future Formula E champion Antonio Felix da Costa was second, ahead of series runner-up Jules Bianchi.