Just as rumors speculated, Audi did in fact unveil the R18 yesterday. Sorry it took me a little while to get this up here, I knew about it yesterday, just didn't get around to it till today, and quite frankly, I gave up pretty quick on trying to write a blog on my phone.
Anyway, lets cut the crap and talk about this thing.
First things first, damn, look at those lights! I think they're Le Mans tactic this next year is to just blind anyone in front of them.
The most notable change is clearly, there's a roof. After viciously denying the use of a close-cockpit races, Audi finally fell into after they were defeated in 2009 at the 24 Hours and also the Petit Le Mans of 2009 and 2010 by those French bastards Peugeots. With that fact it also came as no surprise that Audi had started working on the successor to the R15 mid-2009.
Dr. Wolfgang Ulrich, head of Audi motorsport went out during the unveiling at a press conference saying ""In the future, aerodynamic efficiency will be even more important at Le Mans than it was in the past, a closed car has clear advantages in this respect. Our computer simulations have been confirmed in the wind tunnel and during initial track tests."
Among other aero features such as a F1-style sharks-fin fairing, which makes me wonder about the use a the F-duct system from F1 as well.
Another huge change, this car is packing a 3.7 Liter V6 TDI engine, 2 cylinders down from its past predecessor and 4 cylinders from the one before that. Though there are no specs out for HP, torque and all that other fun stuff, I'm sure it wont be something to cry over.
The loss of cylinders may not be a huge impact since weight has also been cut down drastically by the use a of a one-piece carbon fiber monocoque construction. This will probably make it indestructible against zombies and such as well.
Furthermore, Dr. Martin Muhlmeier, Head of Engineering for Audi Sport also said "In 2010 the tires were a really crucial topic which caused us to fall a little behind our competitor, This mustn't happen again."
If you really want to read it, you can read the official press release via autoblog because thats the only place I could find it.
JK, I found it here too: Audi Motorsport.
Source: Planet Le Mans
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