Audi's "impossible" Le Mans win 16 | 06 | 2014
AUDI'S LE MANS 24-HOURS winning trio of drivers in the No2 car — Andre Lotterer, Marcel Fassler and Benoit Treluyer — have admitted they thought it would be "impossible" to recover from losing five laps after it suffered turbo problems on Sunday morning.
The delay, which handed the lead to the sister No1 Audi, cost the car around 23 minutes as its crew worked frantically, yet meticulously to instal a new turbocharger.
Ironically, the same problem occurred later in the race to the No1 car, which in turn handed the advantage back to the No2 Audi R18 e-tron quattro that went onto win the race.
Worth mentioning, perhaps, that the unit which had to be replaced in both cars, though designed to Audi's specific requirements, is actually built by VW Group sister company, and Le Mans 24-Hours rival Porsche.
"When we had the turbo problem we were very disappointed because it's impossible to come back from that," Lotterer said.
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"We were a bit unlucky, but at Le Mans you never know what is going to happen and the team motivated me again — they did a great job."
And teammate Fassler added: "Earlier in the race we tried to put pressure on the Toyota in the lead, but they were so fast. Then when we had the problem with the turbo, well we thought if you lose five laps it's impossible to get them back.
"But this time everyone had problems. We had to be flat out and have no penalties: it isn't easy to do that when you are pushing."
And Audi Sport boss Wolfgang Ullrich, who oversees the German manufacturer's motorsport programme, admitted the turbo problems caught Audi out because it was a well-tested part of the car.
"We have won already with this turbo and we had no problems with it in the past," he said. "Today it was a surprise for us.
"What happened with the first car … we never had this problem before. Then we saw the same signs on the No2 car too, so we had to change that too."
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And Ullrich added that, despite again not hang the fastest car on the grid, Audi again implemented the 24-hour strategy and efficiency which allowed it to eventually overhaul Toyota and Porsche to win for the 13th time in 16 races.
"It was always clear we were not at the level of the others in terms of outright speed," he said. "We were not able to do the fastest lap but that's not the first time that has happened to us.
"You have to find a strategy for 24 hours, and the race developed in our favour.
"This is a result of the hard work we put in, but maybe lady luck smiled on us as well."
Perhaps lady luck did, indeed, smile on Audi, but it shouldn't be overlooked that Treluyer did the fastest lap of the race, a 3min 22.567secs on lap 317 of the 379 laps the wining car completed. Oh, and 379 laps equates to 3135 miles: not bad going in 24 hours!
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Jim McGill