Tag Archives: Audi

Green Cars of the 2012 Le Mans

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The “green” race cars participating in this year’s Le Mans got together for a good old fashioned photo-op. Moving from left to right we start with the Nissan Deltawing. It’s half the weight and aerodynamic drag of a normal race car so it only needs half the power and fuel. The blue and white car is the Toyota TS030 which ended up not competing in Le Mans due to a heavy crash in testing. It’s powered by a gasoline V8 on the rear axle and electric motors on the front. The silver and red car behind the Toyota is the Audi E-tron Quattro. It’s rear axle is powered by a diesel V8 with electric motors powering the front axle. The interesting aspect of the Audi is that it uses the electromagnetic flywheel energy storage system that’s been campaigned on the Porsche 911 GT3 RS Hybrid. The black and orange car on the end is the hydrogen powered GreenGT H2.


Source: TechVehi

Audi R8 GT Parade

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The Audi R8 GT is the ultimate version of Audi’s mid engine, all wheel drive sports car. The GT is over 200 pounds lighter than the regular R8 and the engine output was raised to 552 horsepower. Only 333 coupes and 333 roadsters were made worldwide. 14 of those Audi R8 GT’s gathered together for a 7700 hp parade to wish the R8 LMS cars luck at the 24 hours of Nurburgring endurance race. It worked since R8’s placed 1st and 2nd.


Source: Motor Trend

Red Bull Terramar Race

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The circuit of Terramar is the second oldest track in Europe and the first auto track in Spain. It’s a high bank oval that hosted Formula 1 races in its prime. Red Bull took former WRC Champion and Dakar Rally winner, Carlos Sainz and current DTM driver Miguel Molina to their home country to set a new record at Terramar in the Audi R8 LMS. You would think smashing an old record around the high banked oval would be easy thanks to the 500 hp from the 5.2 liter V10 (same engine as the Lamborghini Gallardo), but  it’s not that simple. The track is old and hasn’t seen use in a long time. There are lots of potholes and crumbled concrete for the guys to avoid. You can see the R8’s getting airborne several times in the video. Will they be able to set a new record for the track? Watch and find out.


Source: Red Bull on YouTube

WRT Audi R8’s in Blancpain Endurance Racing

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The W Racing Team (WRT) has been releasing these documentaries of their race weekends as they campaign two Audi R8 LMS cars in the Blancpain Endurance Racing Series in Europe. The cars use the same V10 as found on the Lamborghini Gallardo, but are RWD only. I really enjoyed these videos because they give an inside look into how much preparation the entire team does for every event. They’ve posted videos for the first two rounds so far. It looks like they were chasing some suspension setup issues in the first round and had some tire choice difficulties in the weather for the second.

Round 1: Monza

 

Round 2: Zolder


Source: Speedhunters

The Golden Years of DTM

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2012 marks the return of BMW to the German Touring Car Championship (DTM). It will be Audi, Mercedes-Benz and BMW fielding cars this year. I’ll probably put together another post later about the newest generation of DTM cars, but they basically have nothing in common with the road going cars besides the headlights. All three teams will be using the same basic carbon tub as the foundation of their cars for 2012. I felt like that kind of took a lot of the meaning out of what it meant to have the three manufacturers racing each other. Then I was reminded of one of my favorite car videos on the internet. It’s a tribute to what the editor calls “The Golden Years of DTM.” This is back when the race cars were prepped versions of the mass production cars and they still raced on the Nordschleife.


Source: DTMEnthusiast on YouTube