Dindo finished third at 24 hours of Le Mans

For the ninth time Audi has won the legendary 24 Hours of Le Mans and thus equalized Ferrari’s position in the roll of honor in the French endurance classic. Only Porsche’s track record reflects more victories.
At the 78th edition of the race, efficiency and reliability were the decisive factors yet again – both are special fortes of the Audi brand which has a reputation of developing highly efficient automobiles. The three Audi R15 TDI cars of Audi Sport Team Joest ran without the slightest technical problems over the entire distance and occupied the top three places after the fastest Le Mans race of all time. After 2000, 2002 and 2004, Audi thus managed to achieve a one-two-three triumph at Le Mans for the fourth time.
 
"Everyone at Audi can be proud of this historic exploit. Reliability, efficiency and sustainability are particularly important topics for car manufacturers today. And these are exactly the areas in which we have demonstrated our expertise this weekend,” commented Audi Chairman Rupert Stadler, who witnessed the captivating race live on location. "It was one of the most thrilling races in Le Mans history, a do-or-die battle. This one-two-three victory is the fourth 1-2-3 for Audi at Le Mans and no doubt the most valuable victory claimed after the fiercest battle in our company’s history. I express my thanks and great respect to the entire squad. They have performed an incredible and flawless feat of energy. Peugeot was a formidable rival who required us to give everything. We express our respect to the French squad for this.”
 
"After taking third place last year, it was our declared aim to bring the Le Mans trophy back to Ingolstadt and Neckarsulm, and we managed to do this in an impressive way,” said Head of Audi Motorsport Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich. "I’m incredibly proud of this squad and sincerely thank the entire team and everyone who has contributed to this achievement.”
 
The ninth triumph – in total – of the brand at Le Mans was also made possible by a technology which Audi Sport developed for racing during the past three years in strict secrecy: the V10 TDI engine of the Audi R15 TDI with an approximate power output of 440 kW has a turbo-charger with Variable Turbine Geometry (VTG).

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VTG turbo-chargers are standard with Audi TDI engines in production vehicles. Their use at Le Mans helps the Audi engineers to continue to develop the technology for smaller, highly efficient turbo engines to be used in the future. "At Le Mans we’re dealing with temperatures above 1,000 degrees centigrade which have not been encountered with production engines so far,” explains Ulrich Baretzky, Head of Engine Development at Audi Sport. "As a result of downsizing, production development will enter into similar temperature ranges. This makes VTG another good example of how the technology transfer between motorsport and the production side of the house works at Audi.”
 
In 2010 the demands made on diesel engines were particularly high due to the restrictions imposed by the regulations. "Squeezing higher output out of the engines without sacrificing reliability posed a great challenge which our team mastered in an outstanding manner,” said Head of Audi Motorsport Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich after the race. "We did not use the full potential of the V10 TDI engine this year in order to be absolutely on the safe side. That’s why it was clear to us even before the race that we wouldn’t have the fastest car – but a very reliable and efficient one. The development objective of the R15 plus was 20 percent higher efficiency. We managed to achieve this. We’ve been working very hard for this exploit over the past few months. This makes this success, which was enabled by a perfect team performance as well, even more rewarding.”
 
The victorious Audi R15 TDI with Timo Bernhard (Germany), Romain Dumas (France) and Mike Rockenfeller (Germany) completed a total of 397 laps in the 24 hours. With the covered distance of 5,410 kilometers, the trio broke the 1971 record set by Dr. Helmut Marko and Gijs van Lennep in the Porsche 917 that was considered unbeatable because the Hunaudières straight at that time had no chicanes – another demonstration of the performance capabilities of Audi TDI technology.
 
The 2008 winners, Dindo Capello, Tom Kristensen and Allan McNish, who were the best-placed Audi team in the early phase, were struck by major misfortune. Le Mans record winner Tom Kristensen had to evade a slow GT2 vehicle on Saturday night and slid backwards against the track barrier of the Porsche corners in the process. With fast lap times, Capello, Kristensen and McNish pushed back into the group of the front runners and in the end were rewarded with a podium result.



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Quotes after the race at Le Mans

Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich (Head of Audi Motorsport): "I am convinced that this was the most difficult Le Mans victory for Audi. We had the strongest competitors one can imagine. We did not start the weekend in a perfect way, but we worked together to reach a very good level quickly. From the outset we planned our strategy to do as long stints as possible and we used every opportunity that was offered with efficiency and reliabilty to achieve our goal. All drivers have shown a great performance and brought this historic 1-2-3 victory home for Audi. The team has worked perfectly. Thanks to everyone who made this dream result possible for Audi!”

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Dindo Capello (Audi R15 TDI #7): "It was a very difficult race. We gave away time during the first race hour just due to the unlucky pace car situation. After that everything was ok. We just tried to stay close to Peugeot and we never gave up, we pushed from the beginning until the end. It was bad luck Tom got caught with the BMW. It cost us the chance to fight for the overall victory – it was impossible for car #7 to do any better. But I’m very happy for Audi. Congratulations to everyone! Today was an awesome result for the four rings.”

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Le Mans (F), June 12 and 13
1 Bernhard/Dumas/Rockenfeller (Audi R15 TDI) 397 laps in 24h 01m 23.694s
2 Fässler/Lotterer/Treluyer (Audi R15 TDI) - 1 lap
3 Capello/Kristensen/McNish (Audi R15 TDI) - 3 laps
4 Ayari/Andre/Meyrick (Oreca-AIM) - 28 laps
5 Leventis/Watts/Kane (Acura/Honda) - 30 laps