Audi is first manufacturer to take Le Mans 24 Hours race with hybrid (original) (raw)

Audi scored a notable win here at the Circuit de la Sarthe this weekend by becoming the first team to win the world's greatest sports car race, the Le Mans 24 Hours, using hybrid technology on the occasion of the event's 80th anniversary. Yet remarkably, perhaps of greater note was the specific car, one of four the team entered, that achieved the win. While its drivers, Andre Lotterer, Benoit Treluyer and Marcel Fassler took their second win in a row at the 24, an achievement in itself, they were guided to victory by Leena Gade, who last year became the first female race engineer to win here and has now done so again.

Talking about her win last year, at the start of this season, Gade told The Observer: "I hope I'm not a one-hit wonder. I've got to go back and have another two or three wins and add a world championship title to our crew's name." She will be able to sleep tonight, after 24 hours perched on the pit wall, absolutely assured that she, her crew and drivers have banished any suggestion that last year was a one-off.

Which is not to say that the win was necessarily easy, nor a foregone conclusion, despite Audi's recent dominance of endurance racing. They have won here eleven times now, since 2000 conceding only two, one to Bentley in 2003, a year the marque did not enter a works team and one to rivals, Peugeot, in 2009. The latter pulled out of the sport this year on the very eve of the start of the newly-formed FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC), of which this race is both the third round and jewel in the crown - a severe blow to the nascent competition.

The challenge would be met instead by Toyota, who stepped up and accelerated their development programme to field two of their own brand-new prototype hybrid TS030s here at the 24, a very public and tough test for a team to debut their new car, a petrol-engined prototype that uses super capacitors to store energy. An effort in contrast to Audi, who ran the first diesel-powered car to win here in 2006 and were bringing their considerable experience to their new hybrid, the R18 e-tron quattro, a diesel-powered, flywheel-based car that had debuted at the second round of the WEC at Spa in May.

Lotterer had claimed pole for the No1 car looking comfortably quicker than the Toyotas in qualifying. A step forward for the hybrid which had been comprehensively out-paced at Spa by the conventional diesel R18s, two of which the German marque had also entered here at Le Mans. But both variants proved to be less dominant at race pace in dry, humid conditions on the Saturday afternoon. With the racing remaining tight at the front Nicolas Lapierre, finally managed to squeeze the No7 Toyota briefly into the lead at the end of the fifth hour.

He was being chased by a hard-charging Anthony Davidson in the No8 Toyota only for the British driver to hit a slower GT competitor at the high-speed kink just before Mulsanne corner causing his car to cartwheel through the air in a very heavy accident. Davidson climbed from the car himself but was diagnosed with two broken vertebrae which will put him of action for three months and the accident will again raise questions about cars going airborne after collisions, something the mandatory rear shark-fin was designed to prevent.

Which reduced Toyota's bid to but one, which, as is so often the case for a debutant at this most demanding of races, suffered a series of mechanical problems that dropped it down the order, before finally an engine-failure after 10-and-a-half hours ended their challenge.

It left the No1 car and its sister hybrid No2, driven by Dindo Capello, Tom Kristensen and Allan McNish, as the class of the field, to battle it out to the finish. The two fought through the night, a particularly difficult period for the prototypes when, after a spate of punctures last year, new, harder rubber proved difficult to keep up to temperature in the colder conditions, causing a loss of front-end grip.

The No2 had also lost time early in the race having to remove a chunk of rubber stuck in the suspension but having caught up the pair would exchange the lead several times before the finish, often within seconds of one another on track but with only three hours to go McNish damaged the front of his car at the Porsche Curves. The repairs cost too much time and as the clock ticked down returning to the lead lap and second place was the best the No2 could manage, while 240,000 fans watched Gade's car take the win.

Audi completed a podium lock-out with the No4 car of Marco Bonanomi, Oliver Jarvis and Mike Rockenfeller claiming third - the fourth time they have scored a one-two-three at Le Mans.

There was also a considerable filip for British manufacturer Lola, who are currently in administration and looking for investors, as Rebellion Racing's coupe, manufactured by the firm, took fourth, the best of the petrol and privateer cars. A sense of achievement that will have been shared by JRM who put in a great run to take sixth place overall in their very first outing in the top prototype class.

The LMP2 class was won by the No44 Starworks Motorsport entry and GTE Pro provided a very satisfying win for Giancarlo Fisichella, who brought his AF Corse Ferrari through the field after having badly damaged it on Wednesday, while the experimental Nissan DeltaWing, a huge fan favourite, which had been running well, comfortably at the LMP2 pace, was unlucky to see its race end after just over six hours after being struck and sent into the wall by the No7 Toyota.

Lacking the nail-biting to-and-fro of last year's encounter this was, nonetheless, a classic endurance challenge and after 378 laps it was the Audi of Lotterer, Treluyer, Fassler and Gade that proved up to the task but most importantly for fans and for the sport, Toyota laid down the most emphatic marker that they are here to race. They will be back to take the fight to their rivals next year.