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Marketing or not, if Audi wanted to market their V10 engines or the R8, they'd race they R8, which they do.
To Audi Sport, a prototype is a prototype, IE, cutting edge tech. The current LMP2s are no more advanced than the over decade-in-a-half old R8 LMP900, and, in some ways, less advanced (stock block engines mainly).
But then again, Audi Sport bolted from the WEC in favor of Formula E in part for cheap marketing. However, it's also a make-work project until probably their 2020 LMP1 return, if the rules suit what they want to achieve, cough, hydrogen fuel cell or hydrogen hybrid, cough.
We have to remember that all Audi Sport LMP1 drivers are still under contract to Audi Sport/VAG (hence Audi's unwillingness to farm them out to Toyota), and almost all Audi Sport LMP1 personnel are still connected to Audi or Audi Sport. If they were to drop completely off the prototype, namely LMP1, radar, a lot of people would've just been layed off. And Audi aren't keeping these guys around just out of the kindness of their corporate heart...
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