AUDI R18 TITLE - TITLE
New strategy
The debut of Audi’s latest R18 turned heads for the team’s new thinking on fuel management as much as for the raft of tech and aero updates BY ANDREW COTTON
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he battle for the Le Mans 24 hours, 2013, started at Sebring, the opening round of the American Le Mans Series, where Audi ran one 2012 version of its R18, and one 2013 version. As it turned out, the race was a false dawn – the 2013 car was hardly quicker than the 2012 version and overall there was a lot of head-scratching as to how good it would be this year. Then Audi arrived at the opening round of the World
Endurance Championship at Silverstone with a completely different fuel strategy, found two seconds per lap – estimated to be worth five seconds per lap at Le Mans – and Toyota suspected trick new aero at the rear designed to reduce drag. The cost of the extra speed was an increase in overall fuel used; the R18 used 21 per cent more fuel to go 1.5 per cent further than last year. Yet despite the extra speed, the R18 managed its tyres considerably
better than last season. For all concerned it was an impressive step forward, and was certainly a strategy that few anticipated. That this year’s car was faster is to be expected. That the strategy is so different was not. AERO DEVELOPMENTS Audi arrived at Sebring with what effectively amounts to a full width rear wing. The extensions on either side of the wing are fashionably labelled as rear wheel arch extensions, similar
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to those debuted by Toyota last year – the Rebellion team featured similar extensions as designed by Multimatic. The aerodynamic effect of the extensions allow the engineers to balance the car better than last year, rather than to provide more downforce, although that option is clearly available. The ACO reduced the size of the rear wing in 2009, and stipulated that it had to have a single plane, forcing the teams to compensate by also reducing downforce