All Audi Cars In Front at Le Mans

On June 22 for the first time in the 90-year history of the Le Mans 24 Hours, two hybrid racecars are on the front row. Audi Sport Team Joest with its three Audi R18 e-tron quattro cars took the three best grid positions for the world’s most important endurance race.

                       

Starting the race from position two is be the number “1” Audi R18 e-tron quattro of last year’s winners Marcel Fassler (Switzerland), Andre Lotterer (Germany) and Benoit Treluyer (France). Andre Lotterer was one of the few drivers who in the final qualifying session on June 20, managed to improve over the precious on a track that was just slowly drying after rain showers and, by setting a time of 3m 23.696s, advanced from third to second place.

2012 saw a first-ever hybrid victory at Le Mans with the combination of TDI power and quattro drive outperformed the competition on the 13.629-kilometer racetrack in Western France on both days of qualifying. The squad of the number “2” Audi R18 e-tron quattro decided the battle for the top spot on the grid in its favor. The fastest time of 3m 22.349s (242.5 km/h), which Loic Duval had achieved right at the beginning of the first qualifying session on the night of June 19, remained unbeaten the following day.

Live streaming including onboard footage of the three Audi R18 e-tron quattro cars will be available at Audi Motorsport. Sports car fans can watch the most important endurance race of the year on Le Mans TV at www.lemans-tv.com as well. 

Audi aims for twelfth victory at 24 Hours of Le Mans

24 Hours of Le Mans is the race that this writer waits for all year long, perhaps even more than Audi. Okay probably not, but I’m psyched nonetheless. On June 22 through June 23, Audi will be competing at the classic 24-hour race for the 15th time.

Le Mans 2013 will be a year of historic proportions. The inaugural event of the endurance race was held 90 years ago and Audi competing for the 15th time. The current World Endurance Champions Marcel Fassler (CH), Andre Lotterer (D) and Benoit Treluyer (F) will enter the race in the number “1” Audi R18 e-tron quattro. If successful, the three drivers, following two consecutive victories, could manage a hat-trick at La Sarthe. Another Audi trio last achieved this in 2000, 2001 and 2002; Frank Biela (D), Emanuele Pirro (I), and Tom Kristensen (DK) remained unbeaten three times in succession.

Le Mans record winner, Tom Kristensen, with eight wins, is expected to be in high competition for a top result with his current teammates Loic Duval (F) and Allan McNish (GB) as well. In April, the trio won the season opener of the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) at Silverstone. A year ago, Kristensen and McNish finished as the runners-up at Le Mans.

Viewers can watch the race live on Eurosport and on the Internet at Audi TV. Audi’s broadcast will include onboard footage and telemetry data of the three Audi R18 e-tron quattro cars. A live ticker is available on the Audi Sport app, which can be downloaded from iTunes.