As it was kinda obvious from the beginning, Audi triumphed at this year’s Le Mans 24 Hours race with the brand-new e-tron hybrid race car. Audi not only recorded its eleventh victory at Le Mans, they’ve also become the first manufacturer to win the race using a hybrid-powered car, which is quite remarkable. What’s even more impressive it that even the non-hybrid R18 Ultra cars secured top spots. That shows how far ahead Audi is from the competition.
The four Audi R18 cars from Audi Sport Team Joest were the quickest and most reliable vehicles and after 24 hours occupied positions one, two, three and five. First place went to the car number 1, an R18 e-tron, driven by last year’s winners Marcel Fässler (CH), André Lotterer (D) and Benoît Tréluyer (F). The other e-tron with Dindo Capello (I), Tom Kristensen (DK) and Allan McNish (GB) finished second to gain a one-two for the sophisticated hybrid LMP1 machine in its big debut.
Le Mans rookie Marco Bonanomi (I), Oliver Jarvis (GB) and Mike Rockenfeller (D) in the best conventionally powered Audi R18 ultra completed the fourth one-two-three victory for Audi at the Le Mans 24 Hours after 2000, 2002 and 2010. Romain Dumas (F), Loïc Duval (F) and Marc Gené (E) at the wheel of the second R18 ultra finished in fifth place.
So Audi is still the absolute king of Le Mans. For how long can they keep it up we don’t know. But it would be refreshing to see to some real competition out there. Maybe next year…
“By achieving this further success at the world’s most important endurance race our engineers demonstrated their high technological expertise in a particularly impressive way,” commented Rupert Stadler, Chairman of the Board of Management of AUDI AG, who personally watched the race on location. “With the e-tron quattro in combination with ultra lightweight design, we put a completely new technology on the grid and immediately won with it – this cannot be taken for granted by any means, particularly here at Le Mans. This weekend again showed the type of things that can happen in this race and how important perfect preparation is.“
