Bahrain: Audi takes title

With that little scare at Sao Paulo Audi managed a 1-2 victory at Bahrain yesterday.

The Krauts had Fassler in 1st and McNish in second, naturally thanks to the e-tron technology.




In other news sorry I haven't been around, I had a conference for ASME this weekend and I was pretty busy with that. Good news is I'm now a better leader for it and I got to see Embry Riddle, which was pretty cool.



I'll be back after this week (I have a few exams) with more updates from the automotive world.

Peace out!

Toyota Wins at Sao Paulo

Yesterday was a sad day indeed, Audi, still in first with 26 points though, lost their first race this season to the ever-getting-better-er Toyota Denso team.

The Prius managed a first place win at the 6 Hours of Sao Paulo with a nearly 10 second gap! At Le Mans the worried Audi before having two fatal crashes, at Silverstone they scared Audi with a short gappped win, and at Sao Paulo they beat Audi. There's ordinarily a learning curve to racing, but after a decade out of racing, the third race of their newly ordained career and Toyota has already found their niche.


Well done to the men from Japan, but we'll see what happens in Bahrain.

Audi Sports Updates!

1. 6 Hours of Spa was last saturday and Audi did it again! The boys pulled off a 1-3 victory with           Toyota in the middle at the #2 spot.

2. It appears that the ALMS and Grand-AM series might perform a merger. This can be pretty exciting if it happens, it will make American racing championships a lot more desirable to more manufacturers, both domestic and abroad, because it will give more research opportunities. After all, most companies race to breed better machines.

3. An A5 in the Superstars Touring Championship caught fire!

No big deal

4. A new R8 is imminent! Audi released a new video with some of its details. The new R8 production car has rounded(er) tail lights and head lamps as well as a new badge displaying the Audi Sport red tag. Mechanically it has an all new double-clutch DSG 'box that sheds .2 seconds off of the 0-60 time (down to 3.6) and is mounted lower for better center of gravity.

Credit: http://fourtitude.com/

Audi in F1 (part 2)

F1 is a sport designed specifically by rich, posh gentlemen, for rich, posh gentlemen. It's a rich man's sport, designed to go faster and harder and push the limits of what we're capable of building under a certain set of rules.

Don't be lulled or fooled, this is not a sport that breeds a message "to the people". Quite the opposite. The two best things we've gotten out of F1 research is hybrid systems and variable timing. The hybrid system barely counts because while they used KERS to produce acceleration through the corners, we got an electric motor to keep the engine idling, not to mention it went in to production cars a decade after F1 adopted the practice. It is only now that we see electric motors being used in this way on production cars, and the ones I speak of, e-tron and 918 spyder, are far out of anyone's price range.

So what do I think of Audi stepping in to F1? Cultural suicide. This is a company bred in sport, literally pouring money in to destroyed cars and drivers simply to build a better car for the average customer, entering F1 is the opposite of this.

100 years for 100 miles of battery charge. Yay F1?

Quattro, FSI, TDI, manufacturing innovations, LED lighting, and now the e-tron and even the cameras that work as mirrors. All tech developed through Audi Sport that hit "shelves" within a couple of years of their testing on the track. Innovations that have broken records, taken trophies, and lasted decades in the form of "your families 20 year old sedan". All to be thrown away, cast in to the shadows, and for what? A running against Ferrari?

Please. Let Lamborghini take care of that, in the production race.

Audi's New Lineup

Recently there has been an exec change up within VWAG. Wolfgang Durheimer, an old executive at Porsche and current head of Bentley and Bugatti is making a leap of faith in to the R&D of Audi.

Now while no Lucious Fox, the man does have aspirations for his new found home-company:

          “Magazines are always comparing Volkswagen Group cars with each other, so why shouldn’t we compare our race cars within the same group? Competition is good for Volkswagen and it will not be a straightforward fight anyway, because there will be a technology battle going on too. Porsche will be racing using a petrol engine, Audi will be using diesel power.”

He's also hinted that he might be interested in pushing Audi towards F1 (my next post I'll talk about this further, my own opinion of course) and out of WEC. With Dr. Wolfgang Ulrich nearing retirement, Durheimer might just achieve this wanton path.

Dr. Ulrich has been very adamant and outspoken against Audi ever stepping foot in to F1 however Durheimer's argument is that Audi is a company built on dominating a sport and moving on, whether it be rally, touring, endurance, or even, yes, the dreaded Forumla 1.

Who needs SWAG when you have VWAG?

There's an up side though, Durheimer wants Audi to finish competing in WEC, and by finish, they mean break Porsche's record of 16 Le Mans titles; let's put it this way, Audi hold's 11 titles, and many, many more years of future endeavors.

Fourtitude article: 

http://fourtitude.com/news/motorsport_news_6/audis-future-at-le-mans-bright-according-to-vag-motorsport-boss-durheimer/

My View on Le Mans 2012Let's be

The track, barren. Tire smoke, cleared. Pits, empty.

This years Le Mans 24 Hours was unprecedented with two huge records being set.

 The first is obvious, for the first time in 80 runs of this race a hybrid car won, the Audi R18 e-tron. In competition was the Toyota TS030 (LMP1 class) which suffered some unfortunate turns of events. The first car was a wash, a few hours in to the race it had a massive crash with a Ferrari 458 (GTE class) that destroyed the car, even it's driver, Anthony Davidson, came out injured. A fractured spine sent him in to the hospital and ended the teams run in Le Mans. The second TS030 suffered some damage in touching with another car and never was in full functioning order, it's run ended about halfway through the race.

Let's be honest, these were the only ones we cared about.

The second record set was by the DeltaWing. This amazing and marvelous machine set insane lap times considering is potentially a motor driven tricycle with a batman theme. Something sold in the "Hell" department at Toys R' Us. The car "competed" by itself in its own class established specifically for it. The car acted as a super expensive experiment for Nissan and for the automotive world. They proved that a car can turn on a pivot, it can consume less, weigh less, do everything less and even come out on top.

Except for when the TS030 clipped it and ruined it's rear suspension.



Damn Toyota.



Below is some links for everyone to read and a really interesting video from Baretzky, the inventor of the reigning engines for Audi Sport.

Baretzky Video:  http://tiny.cc/1s7kgw

TS030 Video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8jJB6viADM

DeltaWing Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJAiZVuC3YI

Le Mans stats: http://www.lemanslive.com/Lemanslive/Evenements/2012-Le-Mans-24-Hours/Live

Le Mans 24 Hours Update

So far the big news is that the two Toyota TS030's have been knocked out, Audi is holding a strong 1-2-3-4 lead in the LMP1 class.

The DeltaWing met some trouble when it collided with a TS030 but showed considerable strength through the race.

Coming in to hour 16 here of the race it looks like a summed up win for Audi, sort of boring really with no competition. However some excitement from the GTE class where the two Corvettes are fighting for a pole position against Porsche 911s, Aston Martin, and Ferrari 458's.

Updates tomorrow once the race ends!

DTM: Audi's Comeback?

So far this season Audi has been doing terribly in DTM. Up against the newly re-entered BMW M3 and the Mercedes AMG, Audi's A5 has been struggling for the last few races, but with today being the day of the Speilberg race this week has been practice laps and Qualifying.

For the first time in the 2012 season Audi placed first in all practice laps and even qualifying!

As of right now the point standings are:
Mercedes 68
BMW 43
Audi 35

Hope all goes well, I'll have updates within the next few days, and don't forget about the 16th! (Hint: It's Le Mans)


See ya round!


Picture: http://www.ausmotive.com/images2011/Audi-A5-DTM-17.jpg

6 Hrs of Spa

On Board Telemetry of the e-tron from Spa

This past week Audi returned triumphant from their WEC race at Spa. The 6 hour long venture ended in a 1-2-3-4 place win for Team Joest, lead by one of their new super weapons, the R18 e-tron quattro.
This new car uses a hybrid system to recover energy from the brakes while slowing through corners, and then pushes that power to electric motors for cornering through, and out once power is applied at the apex. This gives the car more grip and a higher linear velocity when coming out.

In all this new fangled car should be ripe by Le Mans; a lot of data was taken and experience learned for tweaks on the new cars. Afterall, the Delta Wing and TS030 are waiting to challenge Audi's authority.

Here's a video from onboard the car with it's telemetry at Spa: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OREUhlcK28


See you all around the corner!

Truth in 24 II

It is no secret that I'm an Audi fanatic. My blog is mostly going to be about German cars, I          drive a Volkswagen, and I'm even taking German 101 this coming fall.


It is also no secret that Audi dominates at 24 Hours of Le Mans, and has so for the last ten years. This year will be no different, in fact it'll be easier. Their main competition, Peugeot, has dropped out of the race. They have also left manufacturer racing entirely because they can no longer afford the venture.


So who will be left to stand between Audi and the title? This year it will be Nissan with the Delta Wing and Toyota with the TS030. Not to mention that Audi themselves have a brand new weapon, the R18 e-tron.

These two cars thrown in against Audi will make for an exciting race, invariably worthy of a movie no doubt?


See three years ago, when Peugeot had a car that was significantly faster than the old R15, a documentary of Audi's race season was made, "Truth in 24", and this year they will be making another one of these documentaries.


If you are a fan of Audi, racing, Le Mans, or any sort of combinations of the three, I suggest you watch it. It is 90 minutes of pure adrenaline, watching one of the best teams and one of the best cars attack Sebring, Monza, and Le Mans.


Remember, Le Mans is on June 16th, so stay tuned to hear more about the race and Audi!


Go Team Joest!




Audi USA: http://progress.audiusa.com/
Audi Sport: http://www.audiusa.com/us/brand/en/exp/motorsport.html?csref=inid_motorsport
Le Mans: http://www.lemans.org/en/
Peugeot: http://www.peugeot.com/en.aspx
Nissan Delta Wing: http://www.topgear.com/uk/car-news/nissan-deltawing-launch-le-mans-2012-03-13
Toyota: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_TS030_Hybrid