Diesels Dominate Le Mans as Audi Takes It's 7th Victory

AUDI AG has continued its impressive series of victories in the Le Mans 24 Hour race in extremely difficult conditions. Frank Biela (Germany), Emanuele Pirro (Italy) and Marco Werner (Germany) repeated their success from last year thus giving Audi their seventh victory in the French endurance classic. For the second consecutive time, the Audi R10 TDI claimed victory. The revolutionary diesel sportscar from Ingolstadt remains unbeaten at Le Mans.

In the 75th edition of the Le Mans 24 Hour race, Audi again gave an impressive proof of "Vorsprung durch Technik". The Audi R10 TDI was the fastest and the most reliable car in the field. From the first to the last lap, one of the three diesel sportscars from Ingolstadt headed the field.

More than 260,000 spectators witnessed one of the most exciting 24 Hour races in the history of Le Mans. Changing weather conditions at the beginning claimed the Audi R10 TDI with start number 3 when Mike Rockenfeller left the rain-soaked track on his third lap and collided backwards into the armco barriers.

The impressive showing of Dindo Capello, Le Mans record winner Tom Kristensen and Allan McNish came to a premature end as well: After having controlled the race with a considerable margin for more than 16 hours, the left rear wheel of their Audi R10 TDI loosened on Sunday morning. Dindo Capello who celebrated his 43rd birthday on Sunday was behind the wheel of the car. He had no chance of avoiding the accident.

Thus, during the last five-and-a-half hours, all hopes for Audi were left on the shoulders of the Audi R10 TDI with start number 1 of Frank Biela, Emanuele Pirro and Marco Werner. Conditions were extremely difficult owing to torrential rain in the final phase of the race, however, the established Audi drivers mastered this task with bravado. The impressive winning margin of Marco Werner over the second-placed Peugeot was ten laps at the finish line.

After its seventh Le Mans triumph, Audi has moved up to third place in the historic records during the 75th edition of the French endurance classic. Only Porsche and Ferrari have won at Le Mans more often than Audi.

"This was certainly the most difficult race that we have ever contested at Le Mans", said Rupert Stadler, Chairman of the Board of Management of AUDI AG after the finish. "So this victory counts even more. On the race track, we have shown once more that we have the best technology, the best drivers and the best team. Everybody within Audi can be proud of this success."

SevorbeupstryIsBack - 6/17/2007 12:03:14 PM

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As expected. But Pescarolo and Peugeut did a good job as well!

Agent009 - 6/17/2007 12:05:53 PM

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The Peugeot's were VERY strong. Give them another year of experience and they may just be able to break the Audi strangle hold.

SevorbeupstryIsBack - 6/17/2007 1:00:54 PM

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Yup. Watch out Audi the French are coming!

Neverfollow - 6/18/2007 3:13:51 PM

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Remember, the French can not be trusted!

Agent009 - 6/17/2007 12:03:40 PM

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By far the most successful marque in the history of the race is Porsche, with 16 overall victories, including seven in a row from 1981 to 1987.

Ferrari follows close behind with nine, also including six in a row from 1960 to 1965, while Jaguar has seven wins.

Bentley, Alfa Romeo, and Ford all managed to win four races in a row, with Bentley recording two other victories in other years as well.

Recently the Audi marque has dominated the event, winning in seven of the nine years they have participated.

The only Japanese marque to win the race so far has been Mazda, although nearly every major Japanese manufacturer has made attempts at the race yet failed.

IamEvilHomer - 6/17/2007 3:50:14 PM

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of course the bently won that year with the Audi engines

S4cabriofoxone - 6/17/2007 12:54:16 PM

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YES!!!

Utterly predictable.

But Peugeot definitely has a chance.

SevorbeupstryIsBack - 6/17/2007 1:02:47 PM

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I have to say, at some parts during the race it didn't look so good for Audi. They lost 2 cars!

truecarlover - 6/18/2007 11:16:08 AM

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Servo - in a 24 hour race a lot of cars are lost. Notice that it wasn't mechanical failures. Really I think that's why Audi's MECHANICAL (not sure about electrical) reliability has been improving in their street cars. When you have to race for 24 straight hours you need to have reliable mechanical parts. They have now won 7. Porsche is known for their mechanical reliability and you'll notice they've won LeMans more than anyone.

SevorbeupstryIsBack - 6/17/2007 1:50:12 PM

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Do you have ruin every topic?

rg12345 - 6/17/2007 2:02:06 PM

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He's just a 00x under cover to put some fire on the forums ... They should get smarter though, cause saying the same thing on every post is not anoying anymore, it's boring and will make me cut autospies.com from my visits pretty soon.

IamEvilHomer - 6/17/2007 3:56:20 PM

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you sound like the kids that drive subaru's WRXs

BMWM - 6/17/2007 9:25:51 PM

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"When the Lexus LF-A arrives those crappy VW diesels are going to get nuked by it. And the Lexus will win races because it is reliable unlike the VWs."
-Toyotaman

...You're an idiot, I want to slap you, stop being a retarded super fanboy!

Agent009 - 6/17/2007 11:25:26 PM

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rg12345- Actually we have no idea who he is. But he obviously is a misguided soul.

M53R - 6/17/2007 1:39:46 PM

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Congratz for audi but they better watch their back, at last they have a competitor which is Peugeot. It would be interesting to see both of them compete in the next race.

SevorbeupstryIsBack - 6/17/2007 3:32:02 PM

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Europe is mainly into F1, rally and lemans.

SevorbeupstryIsBack - 6/17/2007 3:33:05 PM

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Totally forgot DTM!

tango - 6/17/2007 8:05:50 PM

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Never get coverage of Le Mans in the US? Are you kidding me? I've watched Le Mans on US television every year. I think what's happening is that you're just watching too much NASCAR. Thanks to the appetite the US has for NASCAR SpeedChannel just refuses to give proper coverage of WRC Rally and a lot of other great series. I have my theories on why that's happening but I'll leave it off the board.

Did somebody say that the VW diesels were unreliable? From what I gather neither of the two retirements were engine-failures. They were crashes (reading IS fundamental). And we must also remember that Audi has won Le Mans with BOTH gasoline and diesel engines.

Happy for them both. Peugeot is known for its splendid automotive prowess over the years (having won Paris Dakar every year between 1987 and 1990, Le Mans in 1992 and 1993, WRC Rally several times and has provided Formula 1 engines to several teams including MacLaren, Jordan and Prost). So come next year when Peugeot's shakedowns are fully completed they may have to create a new class for these oil-burning juggernauts! Diesel truly is the way of the future! Bring it on!

Agent009 - 6/17/2007 11:28:32 PM

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I rarely watch NASCAR... Primarily Speed World Challenge, F1, World Rally and ALMS and Rolex..

truecarlover - 6/18/2007 11:13:28 AM

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Huu76 - I don't follow Nascar because I like road courses - but to say not many follow LeMans is a totally incorrect statement. Do 260,000 fans show up for any Nascar event? LeMans is by far the hardest race to win. Being that Porsche has won the most in history - I think that they have cared enough to show up.

Tango - just as an fyi - VW has nothing to do with these engines. Audi has their own budget and engineers that develop their own technology. VW - because they own them - sometimes will use their engineering efforts.

AUTO_UNION - 6/17/2007 4:39:35 PM

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Congrats to audi! Great race!

alfistiDK - 6/17/2007 5:53:14 PM

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Great acievement by Audi!
Only downside by these diesel monsters are the sound...they really are to muffled to sound like a race car, but im sure the drivers appreciate it though :)

Spyderman - 6/18/2007 4:46:03 AM

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...and of course the fact that the current regulations give diesels about 100hp advantage over non-diesel rivals.