Audi Makes History As Diesel-powered R10 Tdi Wins Mobil 1 Twelve Hours Of Sebring

bhtooefr

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After an eventful race, the #2 Audi R10 piloted by Rinaldo Capello, Tom Kristensen and Allan McNish won the 12 Hours of Sebring.

Well, it wasn't too eventful for the #2 car...

Lots of cars retiring, class leaders dying, and the #1 Audi R10 spinning out, and then getting chunks of rubber in the cool air vents, then the telemetry dying, the car overheating and finally being retired.

The #2 car started out with a penalty for having to have a heat exchanger changed too late, so it started from the pit.

After the #2 car took over the lead after 67 laps, it dominated, maintaining at least a 1 lap lead over the gasser competition. No worries.

During this race, the lead was only held by diesels. Says something about the TDI, doesn't it? :D
 

Random

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TDI wins Sebring!!!

In case you missed it, Audi's R10 TDI won the 12 hour Sebring Race this evening. They broke the track record by 2 seconds...an eternity in race-time. [EDIT: I have been unable to confirm this, but the race announcer did mention it during the race.] With 50 mins left, the second place car, a gasser, broke down while trying to keep up. Let's see a freakin' hybrid do that!!! LOL

Random
 
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TornadoRed

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Audi R10 TDI wins 12 Hours of Sebring!

Diesel Audi Triumphs at Sebring Twelve Hours
Written by: ALMS MediaSebring, Fla. – 3/18/2006


Kristensen/Capello/McNish finished four laps ahead of their closest chasers. (Greg Aleck/Fastlines photo)

Audi Sport North America made history Saturday as the diesel-powered Audi R10 TDI of Tom Kristensen, Allan McNish and Rinaldo Capello won the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring. The new prototype is the first diesel car in the world to win a major sports car race.

"Our R10 TDI is a real racing car," Kristensen said. "Over two stints, you can drive it very precisely, which is a combination of the diesel power and immense torque. It's simply pure fun to drive it."

The No. 2 Audi won the opening race of the 2006 American Le Mans Series by three laps over Intersport Racing's No. 37 Lola B05/40-AER. After winning the pole position, the No. 2 car had to have its heat exchanger switched before the race and had to start the race from pit lane and in 34th position. But by the two-hour mark, the pole-sitting car had moved back into the lead when the No. 1 sister car had to pit.

Kristensen gave the No. 2 car the lead for good when Marco Werner, driving with defending Series champions Frank Biela and Emanuele Pirro in the No. 1 Audi R10 TDI, pulled the car into the garage just shy of the four-hour mark. Shortly thereafter, the car was retired due to overheating.

That left Kristensen, Capello and McNish to comfortably run out front. Kristensen added yet another record to his already impressive résumé. He is now has four overall wins at Sebring, the most in the race's 54-year history. He also has won the 24 Hours of Le Mans seven times, including the last six in a row.

http://www.speedtv.com/articles/auto/alms/22629/
 

DieselBrownie

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http://www.americanlemans.com/news/Article.aspx?ID=1872

Sebring, Fla.
- Audi Sport North America made history Saturday as the diesel-powered Audi R10 TDI of Tom Kristensen, Allan McNish and Rinaldo Capello won the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring. The new prototype is the first diesel car in the world to win a major sports car race.

It was the type of debut Audi was hoping for in preparation for the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The German manufacturer used Sebring as a test for the most prestigious sports car race in the world, set for June 17-18.

The No. 2 Audi won the opening race of the 2006 American Le Mans Series by three laps over Intersport Racing's No. 37 Lola B05/40-AER. After winning the pole position, the No. 2 car had to have its heat exchanger switched before the race and had to start the race from pit lane and in 34th position. But by the two-hour mark, the pole-sitting car had moved back into the lead when the No. 1 sister car had to pit.

"We had our share of trouble today, but that's natural in development," said McNish, who won for the second time in three years at Sebring. "This was the first real endurance test. We encountered trouble but nothing we couldn't overcome. The engineers did a great job preparing for things that could go wrong. The car's rhythm was really good. It was fun to really blast the car around the track."

Kristensen gave the No. 2 car the lead for good when Marco Werner, driving with defending Series champions Frank Biela and Emanuele Pirro in the No. 1 Audi R10 TDI, pulled the car into the garage just shy of the four-hour mark. Shortly thereafter, the car was retired due to overheating.

That left Kristensen, Capello and McNish to comfortably run out front. Kristensen added yet another record to his already impressive résumé. He now has four overall wins at Sebring, the most in the race's 54-year history. He also has won the 24 Hours of Le Mans a record seven times, including the last six in a row.

"Today you can say Audi brought out a car that isn't a test car, but close to it," Kristensen said. "This engine was only white paper a few months ago. I'm pleased to be part of the headlines today.

"This project has been a lot of motivation for Le Mans," he added. "There will be tests that will go on Monday. There's a lot to improve, mostly small details. But those will make us more confident. There are cars that will be at Le Mans that are not here today, but we'll be watching the tape very carefully."
 

sl111

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Proud to drive a TDI!

I watched the race last night and I can tell you that it makes me proud to drive my TDI!
SL111
 

Pelican18TQA4

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Watching that race and watching Audi totally obliterate the competition, with a DIESEL, makes me proud to own a TDI (not that I wasn't already proud)!!

The R8 pioneered VW/Audi's gasoline turbocharged direct injection technology that became a part of their production cars, so let's hope that by Audi campaigning the R10 with it's common-rail TDI that it'll make a strong argument for introducing high power common-rail TDIs to the U.S. market.

I would love to hear that V12 TDI up close and personal, I bet it sounds amazing!
 

Driver_found

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Audi's race cars have always sounded AMAZING ! The 5cyl gas turbo to name one. Now I want to go to an RC4 on mine..

-Mike
 

Mike_04GolfTDI

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We all knew diesel was the best anyway... Now the rest of the world is finding out. They should put some hybrids in the mix so that they can finish dead last just to show a contrast between hybrid and diesel.
 

IXLR8

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Pelican18TQA4 said:
I would love to hear that V12 TDI up close and personal, I bet it sounds amazing!
If you watched it pull away from the pits.. you heard it. It is very quiet, I suspect the quietest car on the track. One of the drivers in an interview mid race stated that one of the problems with the car is that once they got into 4th or 5th gear.. they couldn't hear the engine and they had to depend on the shift lights for knowing when to shift. :eek:
 

OilBurnerBob

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Clearly, the Audi team was sandbagging... they added fuel at irregular intervals to make it impossible to figure out how much fuel the car was using and they were clearly driving it only fast enough to maintain a comfortable lead.

The spin of the number 1 car showed that an injudicious application of power could spin the wheels at any time and, in the post-race interview, one of the drivers referred to the car as 'the rocketship'...
 

TDIMeister

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There have been mixed reports as to why car #1 bowed out. Officially the car retired due to overheating, but the press reports quote Audi team members as saying there was a problem with the electronic telemetry system so that communication with the car was lost...

Putting together some of the things that happened over the race (I didn't watch the whole thing but feel free to correct), car #1 had been pulled to the pits at least once before for overheating...

Unless it causes serious mechanical damage, a spin-out won't cause a car to DNF.
 

TDIMeister

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P.S.: I foresee protests from competing teams and weight penalties placed on the R10 soon, if not before Le Mans...
 

IXLR8

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TDIMeister said:
There have been mixed reports as to why car #1 bowed out. Officially the car retired due to overheating, but the press reports quote Audi team members as saying there was a problem with the electronic telemetry system so that communication with the car was lost...
The report that I read said that they lost telemetry early, there was lots of tire debris in front of the radiators. The car pulled in due to an overheating light coming on in the cockpit. They removed the junk from in front of the radiators but decided to pull the car as they had no clear idea just how hot things had run for how long. It was a case of not wanting to take a chance on toasting the engine, was the speculatoin. SPEED showed them pulling all the stuff from the radiators.. there was lots.
 

TornadoRed

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TDIMeister said:
P.S.: I foresee protests from competing teams and weight penalties placed on the R10 soon, if not before Le Mans...
They can change the rules for 2007, but not for this year.
 

TDIMeister

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A little interesting if ironic tidbit: race winner Tom Kristensen was interviewed some months before by Danish press where he did not seem to have very kind words for Diesel...

Officially he seemed to have nothing but praise for the Team Audi Sport, the R10 and Diesel cars in motorsport in general, but read below...

Link to article (in Danish)

Kristensen states that if it had been up to him, they would have continued with the gasoline engine. That he would feel more comfortable racing the trusted R8 rather than the R10, but that he is following orders from his employers and will race whatever they "for purely marketing reasons" sees fit to race.

[FONT=Verdana, Arial]Og stod det til årets sportsnavn i Berlingske Tidende 2005, kørte han gerne i den gamle Audi R8, hvor et titelforsvar ville være betydelig lettere. Men loyaliteten overfor arbejdsgiveren vejede tungest.

»Som kører kunne jeg sagtens have valgt mig nogle benzinsugemotorer, som jeg personligt hellere ville køre med. Men jeg er en del af et et større team. Og i sidste ende er jeg ansat af Audi til at være med til at forene det nye koncept med dieselteknologi. Det sætter os under et uhyre pres og kæmpestore store udfordringer, som jeg på nuværende tidspunkt synes er utrolig sjovt. Men spørg mig til juni, hvordan og hvorledes jeg tager det, hvis jeg nu ikke fik det jeg gik efter.«

Fordi det kan koste den 8. Le Mans sejr?

»Ja, men det kan ikke koste den 7.«

[/FONT]
Translation (not done by me):
"And were it up to the Sports personality of the year in Berlingske Tidende 2005 he would rather drive the older R8, with which a title defence would have been considerably easier. But loyalty to his employer weighed more.

"As driver I would have chosen naturally aspirated gasoline engines, that I would personally prefer to drive. But I'm part of a bigger team. In the end I'm employed by Audi to join the new concept of diesel technology. It puts us under extreme pressure and very big challenges, that I at this point of time find very interesting. But ask me in June, how I feel, if I don't get what I set out to".

Because it can cost you the 8th Le Mans victory?

"Yes, but it can't cost me the 7th"
 

IXLR8

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Pelican18TQA4 said:
I would love to hear that V12 TDI up close and personal, I bet it sounds amazing!
I found some audio clips HERE from the winter trials. They comment on how quiet it is, I am at work and can't listen to them so I can't say.
 

TDIMeister

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IXLR8 said:
I found some audio clips HERE from the winter trials. They comment on how quiet it is, I am at work and can't listen to them so I can't say.
For everyone's viewing (and listening) pleasure -- but read the commentary about the in-person listening experience there:

Clip 1

Clip 2

:)

Edited to add more clips:

Clip 3

Clip 4
 
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SpamJ

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So who is going to make up "Sebring Winning" to put over our TDI emblems, and keep adding as the wins add up.
 

coachgeo

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Spamjohnson said:
So who is going to make up "Sebring Winning" to put over our TDI emblems, and keep adding as the wins add up.
LOL. how about little kill markings like they use to paint onto the side of fighter airplanes. Painting could be an oval track with the name of the race over it.:D or bettery yet a checkered flag with the race name under it.
 

ICNTDRV

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Wasn't there another team running an R10 TDI on pure biodiesel? Did they compete or finish?
 

knarfy

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On the fuel subject, I wonder how they manage to load fuel rapidly and avoid foaming, the fuel delivery system just pours it in very fast. I'm sure that all those details of the fuel , among others, are "top secret".
 

bhtooefr

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Well, it's 5% F-T fuel, IIRC, so maybe that cuts down on the foaming?

Also, the regular diesel component is ULSD, which foams less.
 
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