Diesel Power!

[Jones~32]

Well, Audi made it look easy, with the number 8 car cruising round to win le mans by 4 laps over the closest Pescarolo. Watched quite a few hours, with the whole race live on Motors TV :)

Full Results Here ;)

[chatman]

Well, Audi made it look easy, with the number 8 car cruising round to win le mans by 4 laps over the closest Pescarolo. Watched quite a few hours, with the whole race live on Motors TV :)

Full Results Here ;)

B) B) Never under estimate the power of a diesel B) B)

[JAHill]

Just looking at the car's stats. The Twin Garrett Audi Diesel looks about the most powerful at the lowest revs. I know there's far more to it than that, like weight for one thing but it's an excellent result for the black pump gang! ;)

The Audi team got the fastest lap too. Good result for the Germans.

[cmarshall]

Soon we will loose the sound of glorious race engines to a tone similar to that of white van man.

[daktari]

Soon we will loose the sound of glorious race engines to a tone similar to that of white van man.

After weeks of negotiation. London mayor Ken Livingston has poached Ferarri racing director Nikki Lauda from the famous Italian racing marque.

Mr Lauda will now be responsible for organising and training the GLC's 2007 entry into the Le Mans 24 hour endurance race.

Mr Lauda is shown below with the GLC`s newly unveiled 2007 entry for that race.

[Jones~32]

Soon we will loose the sound of glorious race engines to a tone similar to that of white van man.

Yep

Shame as that Corvette sounds awesome!

[Gnome]

Diesely Weasly!!!!

[Flat Pack]

No mean feat winning with a diesel, but I suspect the current LMP1 regulations favour diesels over petrols, Peugeot will be introducing a diesel next year too. Nobody would produce a new car that they didn't think would be the quickest possible under the current regs. So far all the new cars built for the new regs are diesels, the petrol prototypes are developments of older cars. Suggests to me that the diesel regs are inherently quicker than the petrol ones. This'd be no surprise given France's love of diesels either ;)

The other thing to remember is that the Audi team has full works backing, the only prototype in the field to have this. I'd expect them to beat the privateer teams simply because they can throw so much more money at finding solutions to things.

I'll be interested to see how the new Porsche prototype does at Le Mans too, they're trying to do what MG tried a few years ago and building a car to the smaller, lighter LMP2 regulations that they think can beat the bigger and more powerful LMP1 cars. The MG was quick enough, but fragile. Porsche know how to build endurance racers though ;)

[DaveSR]

Diesels rock ..... B)

Mind you they probably won as they had to pit less for fuel ;)

[Jones~32]

Diesels rock ..... B)

Mind you they probably won as they had to pit less for fuel ;)

Exactly, they could do 2 laps more per tank of fuel than the petrols, over 24hrs that kinda helps!

[JAHill]

Diesels rock ..... B)

Mind you they probably won as they had to pit less for fuel ;)

Exactly, they could do 2 laps more per tank of fuel than the petrols, over 24hrs that kinda helps!

That and everytime they change gear infront of someone, a cloud of smoke spits out of the back obscuring the chaser's vision! ;)

[Jones~32]

Diesels rock ..... B)

Mind you they probably won as they had to pit less for fuel ;)

Exactly, they could do 2 laps more per tank of fuel than the petrols, over 24hrs that kinda helps!

That and everytime they change gear infront of someone, a cloud of smoke spits out of the back obscuring the chaser's vision! ;)

Was suprised actually, didnt see any diesel smoke at all from them, not even on re-start after a pit stop ;)

[alanbradley]

I lostened to much of the race over the web (I don't have satellite :( ) and The sound the Audis made was excellent - really deep and throaty. The commentators were also saying about the fact there was no smoke whatsoever coming from the cars - now even whilst accellerating hard out of the pitlane.

According to the same commentators it does seem that the regulations were lighter on the desels to allow for the fact that diesel doesn't have the same energy density as petrol, but I do't doubt that the regs will be made more stringent for future years. Remember, as this was the first time diesels have run seriously then nobody knew how good/bad they were going to be so they just had to make an educated guess...

A

[Flat Pack]

Radio Le Mans is the best commentary anyway ;) Although I caught some of the Motors TV coverage at my dad's and that was pretty good too.

The equivalency formula is probably a little out, but the old R8s beat the same Pescarolo cars last year too (despite being crippled by regulation changes that seemed to be aimed squarely at giving the French team the best package). I'm not knocking Pescarolo at all, I just don't think that as a privateer team they can compete with the works developed Audis. The class needs more manufactuers to give Audi some real competition and has done for many years.

Some great battles down the field though, such as Aston Martin just failing to win GT1 again.