Our resident Tidgy, has been to see this, and has come back with some pictures and info, so hopefully he will get to posting it this evening.
Audi's R10 sportscar has made history by becoming the first diesel racer to win the Le Mans 24 Hours.
The number 8 R10, driven by Marco Werner, Frank Biela and Emanuele Pirro, finished the French endurance classic four laps clear of the local Pescarolo machine shared by Eric Helary, Franck Montagny and World Rally Champion Sebastien Loeb.
There was bad luck, though, for Briton Allan McNish, who was sharing the pole-sitting number 7 R10 with Dindo Capello and seven-time Le Mans winner Tom Kristensen. McNish led the pack away and built up a small but useful advantage in his first stint. But the car was plagued with problems thereafter and it took determined efforts from all three drivers to secure third at the finish.
Elsewhere, Aston Martin looked likely to beat arch-rival Corvette for much of the race. But with less than three hours remaining, its lead DBR9 suffered clutch problems, handing class victory to the C6-R of Jan Magnussen, Olivier Beretta and British driver Oliver Gavin.
This year was the R10's first attempt at Le Mans. Its success will be particularly galling for Peugeot, which has already announced plans to enter its own diesel sportscar in the race next year.
Info sourced at : Autocar UK
__________________ zatzy.com | crew Moderator - Zatzy.com
* Email: Johnathan@zatzy.com
Right back on my feet now, although still not top notch. But hears a bit of a write up for you guys and gals.
we left thursday morning and 5am to head to catch ferry at dover, easy jurney down apart from the toll booths on the m25.
Had a good time going down new toll roads in France untill disater struck we got pulled for speeding, 198kmh (is that 125mph?) 750euro fine and we were sent on our way. While i was sat waiting for driver to return after visit to cash point about 6 or 7 cars were pulled in, all british i might add, and fined and sent on there way, must have made some money i tell thee.
what we didn't tell the french police was we'd been doing 160mph about 5 mins before playing with a 360 spider lol.
so anyway, we arrived at the camp site after getting caught in huge taffic jam around the cicuit and set up tents etc, had some food and get the beer out.
come 11 more or less everyone of us (6 went) were completely shattered so off to our tents we went for a good nights kip, well everyone bar me got the good nights sleep, i was up all night feeling sick and ratehr poorly, morning arrived and i was no better, had stopped eating and ended up having rather nasty stomach. come about 2pm i was up at the medical centre discussing wether or not to be admited to hospital after contracting food poisening. in the end decided not to as long as i could keep fluids down me, which thank god i could.
We spent a couple of hours driving round the sections of the track we could, then another disaster, Pauls car started playing up. ended up being trailered away by the same guy and lorry that had the year before when paul lost his keys, doh!!!
sat morning we went and found a place to sit, and boy was it busy (heard figures of 2million people mentioned went to see it) and the cars went by for the warmup and formation lap.
then they were off, and we couldn't se a flippin thing for the first few laps cos of fools at the front insist on standing up meaning everyone has to, with us at the back we had no chance. anyway after half hour or so the crowd started to thin out and we got some good watching in. We sat there for about 3 hours in the burning heat, and boy was it hot. (first few pics are when we arrived at camp then pics from firsat place we sat)
We decided to head back for some food (me to get some more water rather than food) and fired up the stove to cook dinner.
After that we headed up to the porshce curves to watch some more, one thing with it is, if you don't have a radio it was impossible to keep up with who or what was winning loosing or having problems so ended up being just a case of watching cars go around.
Few things that realy stood out was how fast the lmp1 cars were, watch the vids in the link and you'll see, someone said ther were braking to 100mph entering the curves then flat out through them, was amazing to see.
one of the other vids shows one of the lmp1 cars going slowley with a flat rear right tyre (so we found out later).
And i supose i should mention the audis, o the audis, look in oposite direction and you wouldn't even hear them go by, they were so quiet even flat out. The car that won it in the end spent ten mins in the pits having the injectors changed and was dropped to dead last before catching up and getting 13 full laps, yes 13 laps ahead of the 2nd placed car. The lead was only reduced when the car had to go in for a new gearbox, which took 40mins out of the hour lead!! the car still managed to win by around 4 laps.
It was a complete and utter domination by them almost to the point of being like an exibition event. Will the rule be made more strict next year to stop such a one sided vistory? i should think so, but what the rule changes will be we shall have to see.
All in all i think it shows how much diesel engines have come on, but after speaking to a couple of the mechanics, turns out the research on them has been taken more or less as far as it can with todays technology and from being 20 years behind in development of petrol engines the diesels are now about 20 years ahead, so be prepared for some super fast super economic petrol engines soon to be around.
sorry its taken soooo long to replay ate, i have been super busy.
What a good read that was, sounds like you had fun (sickness not included). Diesel cars are coming on bit time, and we can only hope for some super efficient petrol engine development, but we'll see.
did you go in the impreza?
__________________ zatzy.com | crew Moderator - Zatzy.com
* Email: Johnathan@zatzy.com
Just have to tell you that my new car is an Audi 80 Avant 1.9 TurboDieselInjection from 1995 :)
Got it off really cheap so I made myself a great bargain...
And I gotta tell you that the engine is quite nice, but it needs a little chip to bring em' horsies up a bit :)
__________________
Extrajobb runt stockholm sökes - PM om du vet om nån som behöver hjälp!
Stop giving me all these crazy idéas... I'll just end up smashing both the engine and the car =D
Oh, no... now it went off track.
How about an inline Audi 5cyl engine with turbo?
Altough I have been thinking about a volvo 4cyl with turbo and then the gearbox, rear axel and so on from a volvo 240.
Wouldn't it be quite cool to have an Audi with a volvo engine and rwd?
Should make a good drift around the McDonald's car =)
__________________
Extrajobb runt stockholm sökes - PM om du vet om nån som behöver hjälp!
