Triple win for Audi R15 TDI at the 24h Le Mans

Audi made it! They achieved huge victory at 24h Le Mans placing three R15 TDI cars on the first three places. This is the ninth victory of Audi, so they equalized Ferrari's position in the roll of honor in the French endurance classic.

Chairman Rupert Stadler said: "Everyone at Audi can be proud of this historic exploit. Reliability, efficiency and sustainability are particularly important topics for car manufacturers today. And these are exactly the areas in which we have demonstrated our expertise this weekend,".

"It was one of the most thrilling races in Le Mans history, a do-or-die battle. This one-two-three victory is the fourth 1-2-3 for Audi at Le Mans and no doubt the most valuable victory claimed after the fiercest battle in our company's history. I express my thanks and great respect to the entire squad. They have performed an incredible and flawless feat of energy. Peugeot was a formidable rival who required us to give everything. We express our respect to the French squad for this.", he added.

Audi R15 TDI (2009)

"After taking third place last year, it was our declared aim to bring the Le Mans trophy back to Ingolstadt and Neckarsulm, and we managed to do this in an impressive way," commented Head of Audi Motorsport Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich.

"I'm incredibly proud of this squad and sincerely thank the entire team and everyone who has contributed to this achievement.", he noted.

The ninth victory at Le Mans is thanks to Audi R15 TDI powered by V10 twin turbocharged diesel engine delivering 440 kW.

"At Le Mans we're dealing with temperatures above 1,000 degrees centigrade which have not been encountered with production engines so far," explains Ulrich Baretzky, Head of Engine Development at Audi Sport.

"As a result of downsizing, production development will enter into similar temperature ranges. This makes VTG another good example of how the technology transfer between motorsport and the production side of the house works at Audi.", he adds.

"Squeezing higher output out of the engines without sacrificing reliability posed a great challenge which our team mastered in an outstanding manner," said Head of Audi Motorsport Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich after the race.

"We did not use the full potential of the V10 TDI engine this year in order to be absolutely on the safe side. That's why it was clear to us even before the race that we wouldn't have the fastest car – but a very reliable and efficient one. The development objective of the R15 plus was 20 percent higher efficiency. We managed to achieve this. We've been working very hard for this exploit over the past few months. This makes this success, which was enabled by a perfect team performance as well, even more rewarding.", Wolfgang commented.

The victorious Audi R15 TDI was piloted by Timo Bernhard (Germany), Romain Dumas (France) and Mike Rockenfeller (Germany) completed a total of 397 laps in the 24 hours. The covered distance is 5 410 kilometers.

Second place was also for Audi R15 TDI driven by André Lotterer, Marcel Fässler and Benoît Tréluyer.

So does the the third position – again R15 TDI with pilots - Tom Kristensen, Allan McNish and Rinaldo Capello.

Triple victory for Audi, what a perfect weekend!