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Audi wins Le Mans 24hr

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Phil74Camper Head in the Clouds

2,703 posts · joined Aug 2002 ·

#784882
The famous Le Mans 24hr race was run over the weekend just gone.

The Audi race team finished 1-2-3 in the event with their R15+ TDI race cars. They have 5.5-litre V10 turbo diesel engines, making 440 kW and over 1,000 Nm. This was Audi's 9th win at Le Mans - Audi also won in 2000-01-02-04-05-06-07-08. Audi equals Ferrari's record of nine wins; only Porsche has won it more times (16 wins).

The winning Audi also broke the long-standing 24-hour distance record, set in 1971 by the Porsche 917 (5,335.3 km) when the circuit was more open. The winning Audi travelled 5,410.7 km in the 24 hours.

The four Peugeot 908 HDis (last year's winner) all failed to finish. Three of them retired with blown engines.

A good weekend for German sport!

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modulus Veteran Volks Folk

2,009 posts · joined Jul 2003 ·

#784898
Phil74Camper wrote:The winning Audi travelled 5,410.7 km in the 24 hours.
Yikes! 225 km/hr average.
Peter Hill
1975 Type 2 Double Cab
modulus.com.au

vlad01 Compulsive Aussie Vee Dubber

4,270 posts · joined Jun 2010 ·

#784957
woah! the 917 held the record for that long?!?! 😵

71 notchback,
Past owner of, 70 NB, 73 SB and 72 FB TLE

ryana89 Officially Full-On Dubber

315 posts · joined Sep 2009 ·

#784969
The Peugeot 908's were all going very strong, and could have won, until the last three all had that servere failure.
Would be nice to know what specifically failed

Heres the (pretty) Peugoet engine just cause its epic
5.5Litres of twin turbo V12 diesel throwing out 730 HP🤪

2.0slow 92 MK2

Made in Germany, Assembled in Africa, 'Migrated' to Australia

sander288 "Bolt-on Master"

1,404 posts · joined Aug 2008 ·

#784984
what failed???

they were french!😂😂
BMW R65 LS
1967 1300 Deluxe
Swing-axles FTW ❗

vlad01 Compulsive Aussie Vee Dubber

4,270 posts · joined Jun 2010 ·

#785038
😀

71 notchback,
Past owner of, 70 NB, 73 SB and 72 FB TLE

Phil74Camper Head in the Clouds

2,703 posts · joined Aug 2002 ·

#785079
Yes the Peugeots were very fast; they also have 5.5-litre engines but make around 60 kW more than the Audis. They have been on pole position for the last five years straight, and led the race for much of the time each year. However - they have to last 24 hours. In the last five years, Audi have won four times. All of the Peugeots failed this year, while none of the three Audi R15s did - they finished 1-2-3. A good lesson in solid German engineering over pretty French pouffe.

Yes the mighty Porsche 917 has held the all-time distance record since 1971. Le Mans is a race where the winner is the car that travels the greatest distance (the greatest number of laps) in a 24-hour time period. It's not a race like Bathurst, where they try to cover a set number of laps in the shortest possible time.

The big Porsches were outlawed for 1972, and only smaller, less powerful cars were allowed. The Porsche 936, 956 and 962 racers that won the race eight years straight in the '80s were flat sixes, not twelves like the 917. Also, the circuit has been changed a lot since 1971. Today it's longer, and has more chicanes, chases and safety areas than it did in '71. The Mulsanne straight has two separate chases in it today, whereas in 1971 it was a long, long uninterrupted straight from one end to the other. Amazingly, both the 917 in '71, and the Audi last weekend, both completed 397 laps; but now the distance is 75 km greater; an extra 190 metres per lap. See the complete list of winners here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_24_Hours_of_Le_Mans_winners

BTW, the winning 917 from 1971, driven by Helmut Marko and Gijs van Lennep, still exists and can be seen today in the Porsche museum in Stuttgart.

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Phil74Camper Head in the Clouds

2,703 posts · joined Aug 2002 ·

#785082
Oops wrong photo! The red and white 917 above is actually the 1970 winner (Hans Herrmann and Richard Attwood). Below is the faster 1971 winner.

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jsheppard64 Officially Full-On Dubber

323 posts · joined Mar 2008 ·

#785097
modulus wrote:
Phil74Camper wrote:The winning Audi travelled 5,410.7 km in the 24 hours.
Yikes! 225 km/hr average.
I just did 5545 km in my car with this motor which i had since beginning of the year... pretty cool how they did it in 24 hours

Phil74Camper Head in the Clouds

2,703 posts · joined Aug 2002 ·

#785245
To get an idea of what the Audis were like behind the wheel, check out this video of Le Mans at night (this is actually the R10 from two years ago - the current R15 is faster). Listen to that V10 diesel!