Is the dominance of the Audi at Le Mans over?
Certainly that is one of the conclusions that one might make based on the results at the 12 Hours of Sebring held three months prior to the race at Circuit de la Sarthe. The Peugeot turned the fast lap of the race and the Audi had an atypical day at the race track, tripping on its cape several times.
Notes Chris McMurry (at left), driver of the 11th place overall LM P1 Autocon car, “Well first of all, the Audi team just had a bad day. We all have bad days every so often and one bad day in nine years isn’t the end of the world for Audi.”
But he also noted, “On the other hand the Pegueot was quicker. From the cockpit you could see the difference. The Peugeot is the latest and greatest technology and it just looked as if the Peugeot got around the track easier.”
McMurray added, “Anytime you bring out new technology it is the opportunity to leap-frog the current leader — but it does take time particularly in endurance racing. You see that even with the Porsches in the LM P2 class. In the past they have had their issues with reliability — but at Sebring they were really solid for the whole race.”
The Porche LM P2 Spyders finished in three of the top four overall position with the Audi taking third overall and an Acura getting fifth overall.
Even Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich the director of Audi Sport was non-plussed with the team’s performance at Sebring dropping a “S” bomb inadvertently in a television interview with the Speed Channel when he said “There were technical problems, ones we had never had before — and there were some driver errors. We had to change the front discs on one car – that’s never happened before. We had to change a turbo on the other car, and there were issues with the front suspension. All the s**t came our way this weekend and there is already a full investigation into why this happened.”
So now as they say, it is back to the drawing board to a certain extent for both the Peugeot, which has not had the best record of reliability, barley finishing the 24 Hours of Le Mans last year, albeit in second place and for Audi, who had two of its three cars go uncharacteristically DNF at Circuit de la Sarthe.
Of course there is also the Aston Martin threat to the two diesel powered marquees not to mention a passle of privateers like McMurry’s Autocon team and Martin Short team based in the UK.
It appears that the margin of victory for the 24 hours of Le Mans has just gotten thiner — and the race has not even started. Bottom line is that a part of the mystique of the 24 Hours of Le Mans is not knowing who will win the event. Over the last seven or eight years if has been a foregone conclusion that it would Audi.
The mystique is back to world’s most famous endurance race.
