Audi R10 improvements

[Félix]

If anyone was out to prove a point, they'd try a Lola coupe with a Judd V10 and compare it with the Aston Martin-engined car's speed and with an up-to-date Lola-engined Judd. (FIA style equalization anyone?)

The Aston Lola is certainly impressive, and it's been tested for real (for once!). The Courage-ORECA will be fast when tested and is an up to date design. The rules, to me, seem a bit tighter than they looked months ago; but a gap seems to be appearing between open and closed cars.

[chernaudi]

Doesn't Dallara built the tubs for the R10, or does ATR? I ask because at the photo gallery at ATR's site, I see what seems to be an almost completed Audi R8 tub-a car that Dallara supposidly built for Audi: http://www.atrgroup.it/eng/gallery.htm

Is this because Dallara's owner is ATR, and wasn't ATR also supposed to make the Peugeot 908's tub, since I don't believe that Peugeot has the in-house capacity to buit the 908's tub?

[The Badger]

The Audi is certainly having more issues than the last 2 years . Could that be because , finally there is someone to push them ?

[gwyllion]

Ullrich thinks that a new car is needed to really close the gap.

Dr Wolfgang Ullrich, head of Audi motorsport, said on Saturday that if the decision were taken to stay in 2009, it would have to be with a new car. Audi really needs to get its hands on the new rules. Dr Ullrich wants to build an open car, and the design process needs to start immediately.

Asked on Saturday morning about the R10’s replacement, Dr Wolfgang Ullrich pondered for at least 30 seconds before responding “if I had the choice, it would be an open car again, but we have to wait until we see the Le Mans rules for 2010. We need to start work straight away if we are to have a new car in 2009.” After Barcelona, I reckon his choice has narrowed somewhat, and a more aerodynamic coupe body style might be preferred.

source: http://www.sportscarpros.com/cottonb...rom-catalunya/

[MulsanneMike]

Originally Posted by gwyllion

Ullrich thinks that a new car is needed to really close the gap.

source: http://www.sportscarpros.com/cottonb...rom-catalunya/

With the abandonment of the 2010 LMPEVO rules Audi's plan becomes clearer (for them at least). Now they simply have to decide if they still want to be involved. At least they won't have the possibility of impending regulation changes to consider.

[knighty]

I must admit I was thinking this while watching the race, the R10 is now an old car, Peugeot have moved the goalposts, by well over a second, and Audi need to react in a big way, marginal tweaks to the R10 is just not enough.

Audi need a new car, but I dont blame them for waiting on the ACO's direction.........the R10 has given them two LeMans 24hr wins, they should be happy wit that and move on the the next car........all of a sudden sports prototype racing is becoming more like f1, it will be a new car each season before we know it!

[dxk1]

I'm certainly far from an expert on aerodynamics, but it just seems the coupe shape is more "slippery" and seems better suited for high speeds while the open cars appear to be more "grippy" and maybe more suited to running on tighter circuits as they may generate more downforce. Maybe Mike could comment on this "generalization".

DK

[HORNDAWG]

Originally Posted by knighty

I must admit I was thinking this while watching the race, the R10 is now an old car, Peugeot have moved the goalposts, by well over a second, and Audi need to react in a big way, marginal tweaks to the R10 is just not enough.

Audi need a new car, but I dont blame them for waiting on the ACO's direction.........the R10 has given them two LeMans 24hr wins, they should be happy wit that and move on the the next car........all of a sudden sports prototype racing is becoming more like f1, it will be a new car each season before we know it!

I truly think that would be a very bad thing to come about! Costs skyrocketing in such a fashion could very well kill Prototype Sports Cars.

L.P.

[Speed-King]

Originally Posted by HORNDAWG

I truly think that would be a very bad thing to come about! Costs skyrocketing in such a fashion could very well kill Prototype Sports Cars.

L.P.

Not necessarily: Lots of old cars that could be offered to customer teams...

[knighty]

yes, I largely agree it would be bad for the health of sports car racing, but if the ACO are clever about allowing it, they could introduce some sort of clause whereby the manufacturers have to supply other teams........sort of sharing the wealth using last years cast offs.....I'm sure there are many privateer teams who would jump at the chance of running last years car........failing that they could homologate the major parts like the engine, box and tub for 2 years at a time, to put a cap on the excessive expendature.

[JAG]

Originally Posted by knighty

I must admit I was thinking this while watching the race, the R10 is now an old car, Peugeot have moved the goalposts, by well over a second, and Audi need to react in a big way, marginal tweaks to the R10 is just not enough.

Audi need a new car, but I dont blame them for waiting on the ACO's direction.........the R10 has given them two LeMans 24hr wins, they should be happy wit that and move on the the next car........all of a sudden sports prototype racing is becoming more like f1, it will be a new car each season before we know it!

I'd like to think more like Group C.

If the major rules are stable, manufactuers could pass on their old chassis to customers, just as Porsche did with the 956/962, and Audi do in the DTM.

Group C was fine until a change in direction to unrelated 3.5l cars. All new factory cars were required while the customer supply dried up, both from major manufactuers, and specialist builders who could not build a competitive car in such a short space of time.

[gwyllion]

McNish expects Audi to do better in Monza and thinks their reliability issues are solved: http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/66703

[Dario911]

In a recent interview on the italian magazine Autosprint, the chief of Audi Sport, Ullrich, have said the future car will be an open car, like the R10. This means they've an idea how to solve their aerodynamic troubles. I think Audi R10 could be developed yet, but in my opinion, Audi has underestimated Peugeot's improvements on their 908HDi.
So if Audi will work hard, they will recover the gap. Ullrich has said they could win in Le Mans this year, with R10 against 908HDi. I don't think this could be only publicity.
I hope to see Audi to be on top again, beginning from Monza.

[MulsanneMike]

I've been looking at photos taken at Sebring and St. Pete and comparing them to last year and I can't see that the R10 as run in the ALMS has been updated to what was mentioned earlier (new rear wing, revised bodywork over front suspension, etc.). Though having said that, a little birdy says that the R10 (one of them) has some new development on it this weekend at Long Beach and the suspension bodywork has been mentioned...working on photos from Martin.

[chernaudi]

He's something that may be worth thinking about. Audi is running in the LMS to test for Le Mans basically. But where is Audi desperate to win all the races they can for advertizing and commerical reasons? The ALMS.

The R&D developments used on the R10 so far have seemed to be geared to the ALMS, where inspite of the average ALMS circuit being faster speed/laptime wise than most LMS circuits, most ALMS circuits are twistier and curvier-Mosport is probably almost as fast as Monza, but the cars are always cornering, for example.

Audi was faster than the Peugeots at Le Mans last year in cornering-though this is commonly thought to be caused partly by the 908's faulty power steering systems. And the R10s may revert to the lower downforce bodywork for Monza and LM.

And from footage of Werner spinning during qualifying at St. Pete, the R10s in the ALMS seem to be running the '08 rear deck(larger brake ducts, and no more clearence blisters over the DPF/Cat. converters). And the rear deck and front diffuser gurney flaps seem to be what the R10 ran at Sebring/Barcelona(the high downforce configuration).

As Wolfgang Appel said in an interview he did for the ALMS' site, he said in a perfect world that he could design one car for the ALMS, one for the LMS, and one for Le Mans(similar to what Porsche did with the 908 and 917), but even for Audi and Peugeot, money is an object.

I'm just saying that Audi seems to feel(aside from Le Mans) that they have nothing to lose and everthing to gain(dispite their relatively poor speed at Barcelona, Audi does lead the manufacture's championship with their better finishing results as a team) thought experimentation, and they need more downforce to compete with the LMP2 cars at the slower/twistier cicuits to catch up(the Audis were the fastest cars at the track at St. Pete in the race, and dispite being only 6th and 7th fastest, the gap at Long Beach in qualifying isn't even 6 tenths of a second-not much in sportscar racing), or widen the gap at the faster curvier circuits(like Mosport).

[MulsanneMike]

Originally Posted by MulsanneMike

I've been looking at photos taken at Sebring and St. Pete and comparing them to last year and I can't see that the R10 as run in the ALMS has been updated to what was mentioned earlier (new rear wing, revised bodywork over front suspension, etc.). Though having said that, a little birdy says that the R10 (one of them) has some new development on it this weekend at Long Beach and the suspension bodywork has been mentioned...working on photos from Martin.

I might have been misinformed...meh...Martin and I aren't seeing any differences. I'd like to get back to the original premise of the thread, the Sport Auto article that claimed the R10 has already run with new developments. From what I've seen that is not the case as the car looks no different now (Long Beach), at St. Pete, and Sebring, than it did last year. Though that's not to say they haven't tested in private with said items, but they certainly haven't raced with them. Naturally we're trying to get additional info as it is very logical given the speed of the Peugeot that Audi has something in the pipeline so new developments should be forthcoming and soon and the ALMS is the logical place (as with the LMS) to race test anything new.

[sssssssss]

Originally Posted by Dario911

In a recent interview on the italian magazine Autosprint, the chief of Audi Sport, Ullrich, have said the future car will be an open car, like the R10. This means they've an idea how to solve their aerodynamic troubles. I think Audi R10 could be developed yet, but in my opinion, Audi has underestimated Peugeot's improvements on their 908HDi.
So if Audi will work hard, they will recover the gap. Ullrich has said they could win in Le Mans this year, with R10 against 908HDi. I don't think this could be only publicity.
I hope to see Audi to be on top again, beginning from Monza.

Did Ullrich say when will they come up with that new car? I guess they're rather in need of one And I would also like to see a new Audi LMP1 I guess Audi are either not confident they know enough about closed prototypes, or are simply superstitious, after their '99 R8C experience as compared to the mighty R8, or even the '99 R8R.

Also, to me, Audi simply looked TOO confident all the time after their victory at Le Mans 24 Hours 2007 where the R10 proved visibly faster than the Peugeot 908. Peugeot really worked a lot from then on and we all know from 1992-1993 that they have got the potential to crush big manufacturers at Le Mans 24. Think of how powerful the Peugeots were as compared even to the Toyotas back in '92-'93, and then think how powerful Toyota was as compared to Mercedes, BMW and Audi in '99. Peugeot are really good at building Le Mans prototypes.
The thing is, Audi got used to winning so easily with the R8 (partly because they didn't have strong manufacturer competition to defeat, except for BMW in 2000, Cadillac 2000-2002 and their own Bentleys), that they now subconsciously feel, after 8 years, that victory is something that always comes that easy. They really underestimated Peugeot's effort this year and agressively challenged Peugeot in the LMS, although Audi themselves aren't that strong anymore even in ALMS alone.
And also, as far as fate goes, it's hard to believe that, after a model such as the R8, it will go just as easy to maintain or improve that much sucess with a new car - especially with a competitor like Peugeot, which, as far as I can estimate from Le Mans history, is a stronger one than BMW or Mercedes would be.

[sssssssss]

Originally Posted by sssssssss

Think of how powerful the Peugeots were as compared even to the Toyotas back in '92-'93, and then think how powerful Toyota was as compared to Mercedes, BMW and Audi in '99.

And yes, I know, the strength of the Toyota always was the speed and not the reliability - although in 1999 they would have caught BMW and won Le Mans if they wouldn't have had that awful bad luck with the remains of another car on the track. But, the point is, Peugeot have the reliability too, and they're even faster than Toyota, usually. They had the reliability in 1992-1993, they had it in 2007, they have it in 2008 - and they've got the speed.
Audi must have worked a whole lot at the R10 to be that confident about Monza, because Peugeot was about 4 seconds a lap (!!!) faster in 2007 than the times normally set at Monza - for instance, the R8 qualifyied at Monza at about 1:38, and the 908, at 1:34. And in 2008 Peugeot are even quicker.