Exciting endurance racing - what will they think of next?

 

Audi Porsche & Toyota seconds apart after 6 hours.

 

I wonder what it'll be like on circuits with long straights - the Porsche seems to have a warp drive fitted; it made up 15 car lengths on the Audi on the Hangar Straight.

 

Roll on the next one.

Edited 12 April, 201511 yr by camelspyyder

It's incredible how close the cars are given how different they are internally, I'm hoping we get a great Le Mans race with three of them so competitive.  It's a shame Nissan can't run at Silverstone or Spa but I'd be surprised if their car was competitive in performance never mind reliable.  

 

I think it's a bit unfair how Audi have been effectively penalised successively for the diesel engine with the capacity increases for petrols and decreases for the diesel cars yet despite their car looking poor on paper (particularly with their energy recovery and storage system) they still set the fastest lap last year at Le Mans.  I don't know if Porsche are using a different body for Le Mans as Audi have been doing, a couple of years ago they had a longer more slippery version for Le Mans and I saw today they'd posted that the 2015 Le Mans car had managed a 30 hour endurance test and that the new aerodynamics for Le Mans were working well.  Of course the upside of Audi's system is that while it's technically down on performance, it's much simpler than the others which should give it better reliability.  I do hope the Porsches last better this year, while there was a lot of drama with the number seven Toyota failing and then the Audis both losing their turbochargers it was a shame after that there wasn't much of a fight.

 

I still can't get used to the Toyotas being number 1 and 2, still looks odd...I always liked the number 7 Toyota, I was so disappointed it failed so far into what looked like a win for Toyota,

 

John

Audi are going to be running both cars at Spa in the Le Mans low downforce configuration rather than the third car only as they've done in previous years, this time the changes in the car are more significant:

 

http://addicted-to-motorsport.de/2015/04/30/vergleich-audi-r18-high-downforce-low-downforce-le-mans/

 

Many changes around the front of the car in particular the removal of the wing mirrors on top of the wheel arches which are now embedded on the rear of the wheel arch.

 

John

It's going to be great - Porsche fastest in session 1 & 2

 

Session 3  - Audi, Porsche, Porsche, Porsche, Audi, Toyota, Toyota, Audi

Porsche 123 in qually.

No Audi for WEC series next year !!!!!

 

Dr Ullrich carried through on his threat that the Audi or Porsche team that did worse would be deleted for WEC so it is Audi bieng withdrawn from WEC and just going to be in Formula-e in 2017 ! 

I think Porsche saw Audi closing in on their records, and came back to protect their heritage...

They've done an amazing job of it too, forcing the 15 year dominant force to quit sportscars.