"If you win the 24 Hours of Le Mans five times in succession and eight times overall this doesn’t happen by chance,” declared Rupert Stadler, Chairman of the Board of Management of AUDI AG, after the eventful race. "We know how difficult it is to win Le Mans. Also Peugeot, who we congratulate on this well deserved victory, needed three attempts. I trust our technicians implicitly as well as the entire team and I am convinced that we will strike back next year. We are fully committed to this race. Audi will leave no stone unturned in its quest to reclaim the Le Mans winner’s trophy in 2010.”





The Le Mans début of the technically innovative Audi R15 TDI demonstrated that it has become even more difficult to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans first time out with a completely new sports prototype. After cancellation of the traditional test day, and Wednesday’s wet and rainy free practice session the subsequent four-hour qualifying session on Thursday and the 45-minute warm-up on Saturday morning was insufficient time to set-up the new Audi R15 TDI perfectly for the 13.629 kilometer track around which it is impossible to test.

With considerably higher temperatures on race day than on Thursday evening, and the correspondingly different grip levels caused by this, every Audi driver complained that the cars understeered excessively during the opening stages of the race. This was corrected on Saturday evening by fitting another front bodywork section with a different aerodynamic configuration. "Our car was very good after the changes,” said Le Mans record winner Tom Kristensen.

However, another phenomenon occurred early on which had never appeared during the test race at Sebring (USA) in March or throughout the subsequent test program: The intercoolers mounted in the sidepods of the three Audi R15 TDI became so dirty that they had to be cleaned repeatedly. Due to the increasing intercooler temperature the engine power had to be reduced occasionally.

Furthermore, two of the three Audi R15 TDI were torn out of the fight for overall victory in the opening hours. The three Germans Lucas Luhr, Mike Rockenfeller and Marco Werner were forced to retire after six-and-a-half hours due to an accident. Lucas Luhr lost control of his Audi R15 TDI over a bump in the extremely fast "Porsche Curves” and slammed backwards into the barriers. The stewards prohibited the heavily damaged R15 TDI from continuing due to safety reasons.

Timo Bernhard (Germany) and the two Frenchmen Romain Dumas and Alexandre Prémat tumbled down the running order and were left in a hopeless position because the high-pressure injection pump, which normally runs absolutely reliably and which is barely accessible, had to be changed on the V10 TDI engine in their R15 TDI.

As a result, Audi Sport Team Joest were left with the single Audi R15 TDI of Dindo Capello, Tom Kristensen and Allan McNish, who put the two leading Peugeots under constant pressure up until Sunday afternoon by setting fast lap times, before changing the right-rear suspension cost them four laps. At the end last year’s winners restricted themselves to defending their third position from the fourth placed Aston Martin.

"There is absolutely no doubt that race did not run as we had imagined,” pronounced Head of Audi Motorsport Dr Wolfgang Ullrich. "We have once again seen why the 24 Hours of Le Mans is justifiably regarded as the world’s toughest car race and why absolutely everything must be correct if you want to win. This was definitely not the case with us this time. We had unexpected problems with our new R15 TDI, which we will now analyze in peace and must solve. However, especially in the second half of the race we saw just how much potential the car has. We will build on this before making a new attempt next year."

Quotes after the race at Le Mans

Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich (Head of Audi Motorsport): "Obviously we are a little disappointed about the result. We didn’t manage to extract the full potential of the Audi R15 TDI in the race, which we had seen during testing. In addition, we had several technical problems that really caught us by surprise. As a result, we could only get one car onto the podium. Peugeot produced a fantastic performance and certainly deserved the victory. We will analyze the problems we had to ensure we come back stronger in 2010.”

Dindo Capello (Audi R15 TDI #1): "I don’t think we should have any regrets because we did our best. The competition was stronger than us this time. Losing serves a purpose and can help to improve something which we previously believed to be the best. We are well aware that we can improve still further. I’m convinced that from tomorrow everybody – including the drivers – will work to be as strong as usual.”

Tom Kristensen (Audi R15 TDI #1): "Congratulations to Peugeot. The drivers drove exceptionally well, the car covered the distance of 24-hours without difficulty – and this is what it’s all about here at Le Mans. We were third this year, but can nevertheless be proud. Our new baby, the Audi R15 TDI, won against equally strong competition on its racing premiere at Sebring and obviously victory at Le Mans was also our target. We have already celebrated many victories and can also hold our heads high after this race: Every engineer, mechanic and driver did their all. My thanks go to Dindo (Capello) and Allan (McNish) for a fantastic week here in Le Mans. My hope is that after eight victories and one defeat to return next year and take revenge.”

Allan McNish (Audi R15 TDI #1): "We can be totally satisfied with third place overall, even though we would have also preferred to have won and therefore continue Audi’s fantastic and unbelievable winning streak at Le Mans. This series had to come to an end sooner or later, as is the case with all good things in life. We’d already had a very hard battle with Peugeot in the previous two years. This time they were better than us. Congratulations to Marc Gené, Alex Wurz and David Brabham. Everybody who knows Audi Sport and us knows that we will now regroup in order to return even stronger.”