Audi Wins Wild 2014 24 Hour of Le Mans

The #2 Audi R18 of Marcel Fassler, Andre Lotterer, and Benoit Treluyer are your winners of the 2014 24 Hours of Le Mans, the 82nd running of the famous endurance race. This win gives Audi its 13th overall 24 Hours of Le Mans victory and fifth in a row. The #1 Audi placed second with the # 8 Toyota TS 040 rounding out the podium of a wild race that saw each of the three manufacturers take the lead at one point or another. Brand new rules for 2014 saw Porsche enter as the third major manufacturer, each one with their own take on a hybrid powertrain. None of the top teams were able to run a clean race with multiple mechanical and electrical gremlins along the way. In the end, Audi once again proved to be the best combination of speed, reliability, fixability and teamwork to add another trophy to its collection.

Toyota started with the lead and pulled ahead clearly showing more pace than the Audi and Porsche. Only a few hours into the race heavy rain created chaos on the track with a multi car accident forcing the #3 Audi out of the race and causing heavy damage to the #8 Toyota. Eventually the track dried and saw the #7 Toyota build up a nearly 3 minute lead over the #1 Audi thanks to quick running and a couple of safety cars. The #7 would go on to dominate the race until the 15 hour mark when it stopped on track during the nighttime darkness giving the lead to the rebuilt from scratch #1 Audi and a potential 10th career win at Le Mans for Tom Kristensen. However, that would not be the case as Tom found his #1 Audi stopped on track a few hours later. The #1 crawled back into the pits in need of a turbocharger change much like the #2 Audi needed a little earlier. This latest mechanical breakdown gave the #20 Porsche 919 the lead of almost two minutes with four hours to go but Andre Lotterer was flying taking huge chunks of time from the Porsche lead. A little more than an hour later had Andre taking over the lead as the #20 was showing a serious lack of pace even compared to its sister car. The slow laps continued for Mark Webber until the #20 slowed to a crawl on the track and crawled into the pits giving the rebuilt #8 Toyota the final podium spot. Only a few moments later the #14 Porsche came into the pits for a lengthy stop as well. The Zytek Nissan Jota Sport team took the win in P2 while the AF Course Ferrari 458 Italia took the GT Pro honors. Aston Martin took the win in the GT AM category.

Lessons In Smartphone Photography at the Track

Having caught a glimpse of this past weekend's Sebring 12 Hour race it was only natural to reminisce about my own impressions of an endurance racing weekend. Going into the WEC/ALMS sports car weekend last year the expectations were extremely high. A chance to catch two premier sports car races in one weekend on America's own F1 track. A world class track with left and right turns. A chance to finally see and hear my favorite race team in action in many years, I saw the original R8 over a decade ago. Since I have followed the R18, R15 and R10 before that, through more than a few all-nighters at Le Mans on my couch. I argued and debated my fair share of ACO restrictor equivalency charts online but here was my chance to witness it. All in all, the weekend went even better than expected as thunderstorms turned into sunshine and cooler than average temperatures, the Camry rental turned into a Mustang convertible, oh and the racing was exciting. The larger ALMS grid provided nice action throughout on Saturday and the GT category was fantastic. The Audi and Toyota battle went the distance Sunday and the R18 of course delivered with a win to cap off the weekend. Wishing to document the sight I flipped out my new smartphone as soon as the R18 hit the track but this is when my hope of getting some print worthy shots ended. Even shooting at top of the hill as the race cars slowed down to one of the slowest turns at the track (1) the R18 and the prototypes were still too fast to get a perfectly composed hero shot.

My photography adventures started out pretty well as the stands at turn one provided an excellent view of the front strait. A simple photo of the front strait looked pretty good but that's as good at things got as all of my attempts at getting the perfect R18 shot had a poor angle and a catch fence in the way. Everything else about the weekend was perfect.




Hey Not a Bad Photo

Here comes the R18 if only that pole wasn't in the way



And it's gone



Hero Shot!

Audi Wins 2011 24 Hours of Le Mans

In one of the closest and most competitive 24 Hours of Le Mans in recent history Audi won the 79th edition of the famous twice around the clock French endurance classic by only a mere 13.854 seconds after 355 laps of hard racing. The number 2 Audi R18 TDI driven by Andre Loterrer, Marcel Fässler and Benoît Tréluyer finished only seconds ahead of the number 9 Peugeot 908. Rounding out the podium was the number 8 Peugeot 908 that finished two laps behind. While the race ended with an Audi victory things looked bleak for Audi after two of its three brand new R18s were destroyed in horrific-looking accidents. Fortunately neither Allan McNish nor Mike Rockenfeller were seriously injured in their accidents. Contrary to the past few years when the Audi R15 and R10 were slower than their Peugeot competition the R18 proved to be just a bit quicker than the new 908. In the P2 category the Nissan Zytek of Greaves Motorsports took class honors with 326 laps completed. Corvette Racing number 73 ZR1 won the GTE Pro category ahead of the AF Corse Ferrari 458 and the BMW M3 GT while the number 50 Labre Competition ZR1 took top honors in GTE AM category.

Looking back at the race this one will be remembered for its incredible fight between Audi and Peugeot and the two heavy R18 impacts. With less than an hour of the race completed Audi had lost its most experienced team with 13 combined Le Mans victories. Things would get worse for the team as the defending champions would be out of the race early in the night. The Audi team must be commended for staying together after the hard impacts and persevering against the three Peugeots that were almost willing to trade one of their cars for the remaining Audi. In the end the little extra pace that Audi had over the pace along with the ability to run their drivers and tires for longer at a time allowed Audi to win even with a few extra stops for fuel .

In P2 the Greaves Motorsport team won by a comfortable margin in their Zytek Nissa that appeared to be the powerplant of choice in P2.Of note was the second place finish of the "Playstation Driver" Lucas Ordonez driving for the Singatech team, time to hit the couch and start racing. As always the competition in GT category was exciting if perhaps not as close as before. The #74 Corvette benefited from the first safety car period to get a significant lead on the class only to crash out later. It was the #73 Corvette that was eventually able to hunt down and pass the Af Corse 458 Italia that was suffering mechanical issues. Coming third in class was the #56 BMW M3 GT, BMW must be somewhat dissapointed by not being able to match their qualifying pace. Of note was the lack of a 911 on the podium in perhaps the last Le Mans for the 997. The Labre Competition team took first and second in GT AM. However, the biggest story in the class was the Robertson Racing Ford GT-Doran team of husband and wife Dave and Andrea Robertson (and pro driver David Murry )that won the race on their wedding anniversary. While this is a great story, not everyone feels that amateur drivers belong at such a fiercely competitive race such as Le Mans. Make your own decision on this one.

Le Mans 2011 was one of the best of all time thanks to Audi and Peugeot pushing each other to the limit and then some. Take a look at the final results here and relive the race through our hourly updates here.



The victorious number 2 Audi team of Andre Loterrer, Marcel Fässler and Benoît Tréluyer.

Audi Sweeps Front Row in Le Mans Qualifying

For a race in which pole position means practically nothing Thursday's qualifying sessions brought a great show for the fans. The #2 Audi R18 piloted by Benoît Tréluyer set the quickest time of 3 minutes and 25.738 seconds around the 8.469 mile long Circuit de la Sarthe. The #1 Audi of Romain Dumas was only 0.061 of a second behind to secure an all Audi front row. The quickest Peugeot was the #9 which was just 0.272 of a second behind pole position. In fact in one of the closest qualifying rounds in recent years the top six competitors were all separated by under six tenth of a second. This year the brand new Audi R18 and the equally brand new Peugeot 908 are running as close together as the two rivals ever have setting up an extremely competitive race tomorrow. With the ACO mandated slow refilling for the diesel cars fuel economy will likely play an important role along with running a clean race with no driver errors or mechanical problems.

First in the P2 category was the #26 Signatech Nissan with a time of 3 minutes and 41.458 seconds while the #55 BMW Motorsport M3 GT took the top spot in the GT Pro category with a time of 3:57.592. The #61 AF Corse F430 was the quickest in the GTE AM category with a time of 4:01.282.

The 79th edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans starts at 3 PM local time or 9 AM Easter/6 AM Pacific. Stay tuned here for an hourly blog updates. Catch the race on Speed and on the Speed online stream here. Listen to the entire race with Radio Le Mans and stay up to date with live timing and scoring. Follow the race for the lead even closer with special access directly from Audi
and Peugeot.