The history of Audi Sport, part 3: innovation through success at Le Mans

From the turn of the millennium through to the middle of the following decade, Audi had

a grip on sports car racing of the sort rarely seen, and never more so Toby than at the Le Mans

24 hours. They just turned up and again, like rallying, they hid the ball didn't they? Clever

petrol direct injection technology and then just three or four guys said, why don't we bring diesel

to Le Mans. In 2006, they had done 18,000 kilometres of testing. It gave people a belief

in diesel technology, that it wasn't dirty anymore, and it wasn't. It was a game-changer

the world over for those 24-hour races at the Circuit de la Salle

So much of that technology made its way onto the road cars, and I mean, who would have

thought just a decade earlier that Audi would have its own supercar? It just seems unimaginable

But here we are, the gorgeous original Audi R8. In the midst of Audi's first era of Le Mans domination, it seemed only right that it should unveil a concept car called Le Mans

That it duly did in 2003 with the beautiful Le Mans Quattro concept

In 2005, it was signed off for production and the production version arrived in 2007

It used Audi aluminium space frame technology and was powered by a new dry sumped version of the 4 litre 4 FSI V8 first seen the year before in the B7 RS4

FSI, or to you and I, direct injection, was developed on the R8 Le Molle car

boosting the efficiency of the race car and now the road car too

This really is a modern classic. In fact, I'd go as far to say it's one of the great performance cars ever produced, really

But as a driver's car, it's still every bit as good as it was way back in 2007

I love the balance of it. The V8 is just lovely. The manual gearbox

Listen to that. That's fast. I hope you're getting that on the mic because it's such a glorious V8 sound

It never really feels four-wheel drive. If you really get it into the corner nicely, you just power oversteer

I don't feel short change. I don't feel like I want another 200 horsepower or something

This is more than quick enough. I just love the way it steers as well

light, no artificial weighting, no sort of heaviness or stickiness to the way it steers

Throttle back a bit, take a breath, take it easy and it just glides and you change gear

at the speed you want and it's also lovely. You don't have to go hell for leather for

it to be rewarding tactile and enjoyable Adam Quattro no Diesel yes Like four drive from the Quattro that then was for the everyday man in the streets on the road

this was diesel technology coming from Le Mans to the everyday man driving on the street

You know, this was the beginning of the town car as well, let us not forget that

So it's not a super sporty thing, but the sport inside there

It's a cool car, isn't it? It's kind of cute and it's cool. And it was very advanced with its use of lightweight construction

Of course, Audi were known for bringing in that aluminium structures that they did

But also, it's a great example of the kind of TDI technology that you were just talking about

The A2 was a technical marvel. In its own way, every bit as advanced and forward-thinking as a car like the R8

Ferdinand Pieck was a keen proponent of the TDI engine, and Audi took it a stage further to go endurance sports car racing with diesel power

The result was a worthy successor to the all-conquering R8 LMP1 car, the R10 TDI

powered by an immense 5.5 litre V12. It delivered 650 brake horsepower and over 800 pounds foot of torque

The R10 scored Le Mans wins in 2006, 7 and 8 and its success has added to that

with the V10 powered TDI R15 in 2010 and the V6 R18 TDI in 2011 12 13 and 14 Given the immense performance and cornering speeds of the Le Mans winning Audi prototypes seeing far enough down the track became of vital importance

Audi had already been at the forefront of road car lighting technology when the R8 was the first

to offer all LED lighting in 2008 and Matrix LEDs in 2013. In 2014, Audi announced that the R18 TDI

e-tron Quattro would race with new laser lights capable of twice the reach of LEDs and that year

it also unveiled the R8 V10 LMX, the first road car to use laser light technology

just another innovation coming from Le Mans. It's a great example of technological transfer, isn't it

But actually, there's another technological transfer point with both these cars, in fact

and that's the S-Tronic gearbox because, of course, the car that we drove earlier, the S1 E2

when Walter Ruhl entered that car onto the RAC in 85, that had a twin-clutch gearbox

on the very first appearances of that gearbox, and we've kind of brought it full circle now, haven't we

with these with these two R8s. Well it's also again it's going from you know an Audi 80 in the late

70s you know though that very simple humble car in Germany to that. It's a long way in the

it is a huge way and they're still going