V12 650+hp diesel race car for Sebring & Lemans

[orangebluegreen]

And....the diesel wins the 12 Hours of Sebring.


“AUDI MAKES HISTORY AS DIESEL-POWERED R10 TDI WINS MOBIL 1 TWELVE HOURS OF SEBRING
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.”

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



What an incredible machine, smooth over the bumps and so quiet it was hard to tell if what you heard was intake or exhaust note. The car qualified in first position but had to start at the tail of the field (due to a cracked part having to be changed pre-race) but was near the front in about an hour. They held the car at the end of pit road while the others started out on the track. I happened to be standing right there about 30 feet from it and was listening to the sound, you could hear a definite diesel sound at idle, but if you didn’t know it was diesel and weren’t listening for it, you probably wouldn’t notice. Once past idle, you could not tell the difference from a gas powered engine. Everyone at the track was in awe at how clean it was, not a hint of smoke ever. At Sebring anyone can go into the pits and garage area, the crew kept the engine area covered at all times. I heard one fellow asked if he could take a picture of the engine and a crew member replied unfortunately they wish it could be open for everyone to view, but they suspected corporate spies (I won’t mention the brand here) were there trying to take pictures earlier so they were forced to cover the engine so as not to help competitors future bids.

 

[Jagmandave]

I watched the race on Speed, and I was very impressed with this car, I think not only is it going to win at Le Mans, but with a comfortable margin. I also don't think they had the "wick" turned up all the way at Sebring, that there's even more power available than they showed so far. The race in June will be very interesting, and the competition wil be tougher than what was at Sebring (this is not meant to talk the other entrants down, just that there weren't very many entries in this class at Sebring)

What actually happened to the second car? I heard that it overheated and that they lost elemetry........

I don't know why they need to cover the engine, what could a rival mfr. really learn from looking at the outside?

How many laps were they ahead at the end? 4?

 

[orangebluegreen]

One thing is certain about the Audi’s (both the R8 and R10) they are absolutely superior over the bumps, and Sebring is BRUTAL in that regard. You could actually see the torque in action as well, it was so quiet you could hear the turbo spool up off the slow corners and once it did it was like a sling shot.


I too agree the competition will be tougher at Lemans. At one point there was talk the Audi might be “nursing” the engine home, but that was put down by the crew. They did finally say overheating was the cause of the car #1’s retirement, the weather was very warm which couldn’t have helped. Earlier in the week I was at their garage area after a long hot practice and noticed they quickly took off the nose and metallic front support areas. I wondered then if there might be a problem with air intake (if that’s where the cooling air comes in?) I noticed the main competition (the new Porsche run by Penske) was doing little more than shining the car. Unfortunately neither Porsche made the end. Even though in a theoretically slower class, the lighter weight made the Porsche competitive in lap times, though I noticed they appeared much rougher over bumps which has to be hard on driver and equipment.

I too heard they lost telemetry (on the Audi that retired) for the last two hours. I also heard the Audi’s telemetry was being intercepted....made me curious if it was being jammed, but the winning Audi’s telemetry was apparently working ok. At Sebring you can stand right behind the engineers and watch the computers that tell them everything the car is doing....you can watch the gear shifts, RPM, on and on, they have over a dozen computers set up being monitored the entire time.

I’m not sure what a competitor might gain from photos of the engine, I was wondering maybe scale the sizes or positioning of components, and the commentator who visits many of these shops mentioned fuel injection layout and setup might be one target....the media was speculating on that question as well. Interesting was a part Audi changed during one stop no one could identify, they were speculating maybe it was the duel particulate filters but no one knew because it has been talked about but not seen.

Last I had heard they were 3 laps ahead, I never looked at final results but 3-4 was probably correct. They admitted there was plenty of info gathered by the Sebring race and had many other things to try on Monday. They were still there Sunday when I left, so not sure if they were staying around to test at Sebring? But the comments alluded to them having more to come they had not yet shown.


Edit.....
Not sure if the telemetry being down had a connection to overheating? I don’t know enough about how the electronics are set up and what is controlled, but if cooling were to have any electronic control and that was lost, could be a possible reason....I am just speculating with no knowledge if control is elec. or mech.
On the car that won there were a couple of lights that were flickering from apparent loose connections which has been untypical of Audi’s in the past. So makes one wonder if the bumps were getting to the electronics. The radio commentary mentioned that and said it would not be news worthy (common sight amongst competitors) other than Audi has in the past been absolutely flawless in every detail. There was also mention bumps this year were worse than ever.

 

[Steve_Miller]

The only thing better would have been telemetry along with it, but I can do without. Super audio and video best one I've seen yet.

Thanks Steve

 

[Jagmandave]

I heard the overheating was caused by clumps of rubber from the tires clogging the radiators, they didn't find out till it was too late for the one car, and on all subsequent pitstops on the other car, they would reach in and grab handfulls of the stuff out of the radiators and ducts. Great race, and fun stuff........