The beginning of a new era at Audi
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 Ingolstadt, May 4, 2012 – The race debut of the Audi R18 e-tron quattro at Spa-Francorchamps this weekend signifies the beginning of a new era at Audi. For the first time ever, a Le Mans sports car with diesel hybrid drive and two driven axles will compete in a race. For Head of Audi Motorsport Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich, this is arguably the most challenging project in the more than 30-year history of Audi Sport.
Audi previously marked milestones at Le Mans with TFSI gasoline direct injection (first victory in 2001) and TDI diesel power (first victory in 2006). Now, at round two of the World Endurance Championship (WEC) at Spa, the company's first diesel hybrid sports car will be contesting its first race. The birth of the idea for an LMP vehicle with diesel hybrid power and quattro drive at Audi Sport dates back several years though.
'We started to think about the hybridization of a Le Mans sports car relatively soon after the first TDI successes,' reveals Head of Audi Motorsport Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich. 'A concrete opportunity for this materialized when it became clear that the regulations would be permitting such an option.' In 2008, the Le Mans organizer ACO announced this forward-thinking approach and since 2009 the regulations have expressly been allowing energy recovery systems for LMP1 cars. The complexity of the related tasks is shown by the fact that in 2012 Audi is the first automobile manufacturer to field such an LMP1 vehicle in a race.
As usual, the project at Audi Sport commenced with concept studies. 'Naturally, we were again able to benefit from the resources of the Technical Development division at AUDI AG,' stresses Dr. Ullrich. 'Right from the beginning of the project, we intensively liaised with our colleagues on the production side of the house where concepts are created and examined for future road vehicles. They worked out a solution in which one of the axles is driven by the power supplied by an internal combustion engine and the other by the power from an electric motor. This defines a new form of quattro drive – the e-tron quattro. We're also pursuing this strategy in racing, which again puts us on the front row. Not only because we'll be the first at Spa to contest a race with such a concept in an LMP race car, but because production development will be able to benefit from our system in the future as well.'
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