For the ninth time Audi has won the 24 hours of Le Mans, the fourth with a 1-2-3 victory. That is right, all 3 Audi R15 TDI made it to the podium. The three Audi R15 TDI cars of Audi Sport Team Joest ran without the slightest technical problems over the entire distance and occupied the top three places after the fastest Le Mans race of all time.

Once again Audi relied on the brand’s special fortes to bring the Le Mans trophy back to Ingolstadt and Neckarsulm, efficiency and reliability were the decisive factors yet again.

Audi Chairman Rupert Stadler, who witnessed the historic moment for Audi Motorsport and commented:

“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.”

Head of Audi Motorsport Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich also commented on Audi’s historic win at the French endurance classic:

“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, I’m incredibly proud of this squad and sincerely thank the entire team and everyone who has contributed to this achievement.”

As afore mentioned efficiency and reliability played an important role to help Audi win its ninth title at the 24 hours of Le Mans, but a new technology developed by Audi Sport in strict secrecy also made the difference for the R15s: the V10 TDI engines were equipped with a turbo-charger with Variable Turbine Geometry (VTG).

VTG turbo-chargers are standard with Audi TDI engines in production vehicles. Their use at Le Mans helps the Audi engineers to continue to develop the technology for smaller, highly efficient turbo engines to be used in the future.

“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.”

Despite the fourth one-two-three victory Audi broke another record, one that many thought was unbeatable. The victorious Audi R15 TDI with Timo Bernhard (Germany), Romain Dumas (France) and Mike Rockenfeller (Germany) completed a total of 397 laps in the 24 hours. With the covered distance of 5,410 kilometres, the trio broke the 1971 record set by Dr. Helmut Marko and Gijs van Lennep in the Porsche 917 that was considered unbeatable because the Hunaudiиres straight at that time had no chicanes – another demonstration of the performance capabilities of Audi TDI technology.

In second place finished the R15 TDI driven by Marcel Fдssler, Andrй Lotterer and Benoоt Treluyer on whose front bodywork had to be changed twice after contact with the track barriers.

The R15 TDI driven by British driver Allan Mcnish, Dindo Capello and Tom Kristensen finished third after been struck by major misfortune.

Congratulation to all three Audi Team for a flawless race and a historic win for Audi at 2010 24 Hours of Le Mans.

The US endurance classic will act as stern test and dress rehearsal for the 24 Hours of Le Mans in June.

Fourtitude says the new Audi R15 TDI is packed with numerous technically innovative detail solutions and differs significantly from its predecessor model the R10 TDI which was undefeated at Le Mans.

Head of Audi Motorsport Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich explains: ‘So far the R15 TDI has performed as we expected. Now it must also prove itself in race conditions. Sebring is a particularly hard race and is therefore perfectly suited to reveal even the smallest of weaknesses.’

The Audi R8 triumphed on its debut at Sebring and on the premiere of the R10 TDI in 2006 Audi landed the first victory worldwide for a diesel powered sports car.

In total Audi has won the 12-hour race at Sebring eight times, not bad eh!