Television doesn’t do justice to the elevation changes at Road Atlanta. The elevation change down through the esses is matched only by the steep climb up to Turn 5. There is curbing at the corner exit, but it is low and there is a lot of asphalt beyond, so cars quickly power up the hill and drift wide at the exit. The esses are often single file, so this is also the first opportunity faster cars have to make use of their superior torque and grip to pass slower cars.
Inside of 15 minutes from the start, the faster prototype cars at the front of the grid started to catch the GTD cars. (Of course, “fast” is a relative concept when all of the cars in the Petit Le Mans were quite quick by any ordinary measure.)
In this shot, the #51 Action Express Corvette Daytona Prototype edges to the inside of the #44 Magnus Audi and the #96 Turner BMW. The curvature of the track is evident as the BMW emerges up and over the crest of the Turn 5 hill. The shot is also noteworthy because of the debris in the front grille of the BMW with the race barely underway.
Camera Settings – 1/2000 shutter speed, f/4, ISO 100, 420mm.
Much has already been written and said about the withdrawal of Audi from the FIA WEC series and top-tier LMP racing.
John Dagys talks about 
Banners alongside the track have been a very visible means of grabbing eyeballs and making sure you remember Audi’s presence even when the four rings aren’t in the television frame or spectator’s sight line.
The quantity of staff and guests at LeMans alone was staggering. Multi-story temporary hospitality structures? Yes – several of them. Audi didn’t just bring guests to LeMans – they took over an exhibition hall to build hundreds of pods for guests within a 10 minute walk from the Le Mans track – and kept a fleet of cars and vans to ferry guests around the facility.
Those things barely scratch the surface of the Audi approach to making the most of their investment. The logistics are incredible. The impact for service providers, caterers, local temporary staff, airlines, construction crews, transporter drivers, electricians, and more will be material. While the loss will be felt inside the FIA WEC offices. The tracks that sell advertising space and hospitality spaces and the surrounding communities will also feel the impact.
The high standard on the race track is abstract in some ways, but certainly operated as a bar for others to meet. We know that Audi staff had to make the case each year to continue their program, but imagine the poor person tasked with making the business case to a Board of Directors or Chief Financial Officer at another manufacturer to spend the cubic Euros that it would take to be competitive.
The rear-end change during the 2000 LeMans race is still discussed today. Think about that for a second. We are in 2016 and a mechanical fix done 16 years ago during one race still is discussed in hushed tones of reverence among sportscar fans. It is memorable amidst all of the all of the other memorable Audi moments on the track and when the trophies were handed out. In fact, the switch was so remarkable that it inspired a change in the regulations to ensure that such a thing could never happen again.
As easy as it might be to blandly attribute Audi’s success to a faceless German automated machine, the Audi effort was populated by colorful characters. Dr. Woflgang Ullrich always had a twinkle in his eye as he fielded questions from pit reporters during the race. He also generously stopped what he was doing briefly in pit lane on the morning of Le Mans to say hello – and did it with a big smile. Brit Howden “H” Haynes played the central figure in the Truth in 24 and made himself a celebrity in the sportscar world. Like Dr. Ullrich, he is the same person with the same affect as the person seen on screen and he easily made time to briefly chat about the misfortunes in practice for the 2014 race and subsequent repairs. Howden’s protoge, fellow Brit Leena Gade, not only calmly stepped into his place when he departed Audi, but claimed victory on her own terms. When is the last time you saw a spectator banner at the racetrack that featured the name of an ENGINEER? Drivers, teams, countries – yes. But, an engineer? The power of the personalities at Audi, Audi’s willingness to let them be the focus of attention, and their relentless desire to do no more than play their part in the team.
Americans could always look to Brad Kettler, a fixture in so many different roles in the Audi racing program over many years. Tom Kristensen – Mr. LeMans – is likely the sole reason for the Danish invasion at Le Mans each year. Allan McNish always proudly ran with the Scottish Hunting MacInnes tartan banner on his helmet. There is no question that the program always was for a German manufacturer with deep German roots, but the best and the brightest were sought regardless of the flag on their uniform.
In 2011, Audi endured two enormous crashes. Allan McNish’s unsuccessful attempt to slice down the inside of a Ferrari GT car just after the Dunlop bridge rained Audi parts down on photographers and bystanders. A full wheel assembly bounced behind the barrier with suspension pieces still attached. Later in the same race, Mike Rockenfeller crashed at night in a big way and littered the track with debris in the fast run towards Indianapolis corner (ironically, also trying to pass a Ferrari GT car). There wasn’t great video of the incident, but the magnitude was clear.
While we’re talking about drivers, consider the roster of drivers that have worn the Audi rings in the prototype program. Yes, names like Tom Kristensen and Allan McNish come to mind easily. But think about names like Frank Biela, Didier Theys, Emanuele Pirro, Rinaldo Capelo and Michele Alboreto. Alboreto, the Italian former Ferrari F1 driver , sadly died in a 2011 testing crash at Lausitzring in an Audi R8.
Christian Abt, Laurent Aiello, and Stephane Ortelli ran in the early days of the program. Mike Rockenfeller, Timo Bernard, Romain Dumas, Loic Duval, Marcel Fassler, Benoit Treluyer, Lucas Di Grassi, Oliver Jarvis, Marc Gene, and Lucas Luhr came later.
The drivers individually were impressive and the Audi success helped them to establish their place in history, but the driver combinations were magic. Biela, Pirro, and Kristensen won three Le Mans races in a row. McNish, Capello and Kristensen won Le Mans, Sebring and others. Having fast drivers is one thing, but getting the combinations right and balancing the desire to be fast but to be a productive team-mate is an art. Somehow Audi did that consistently.
Audi’s engineering behind the scenes (and drivers and other support) gave Bentley it’s 1-2 finish in 2003 while customer teams followed in third and fourth. While it may have been a Bentley badging exercise, arguably the win and publicity gave Bentley road cars a strong push in its resurgence as a player on the luxury car market.
With so many moments and angles to choose from, it can be easy to overlook even those that attracted global attention at the time. Think back to 2014 when Porsche made its return to top-tier sportscar racing. Just before the race, Audi published a one minute Youtube video showing an Audi LMP prototype making its way from Ingolstadt, through the German countryside (passing a gentleman on a Porsche tractor – cheeky and subtle), into Stuttgart and stopping in front of the Porsche factory. Spinning tires created a haze of tire smoke but instead of circular donuts, the prototype spelled out “Welcome Back” on the pavement. Very classy. Excellent concept and choreography. Very clever use of social media. Interestingly, the message was also scrawled on the pavement in English rather than German, a clear acknowledgement of the global target for the message.
Sadly, the complex nature of the modern-day prototype means that most Audi prototypes will never find there way into private ownership and historics racing. Some of the earlier Audi R8 models have indeed been sold and make periodic appearances, but like the Porsche RS Spyder, that was very likely the last model that will do so.
Arguably, Porsche’s place in sportscar racing history is continually cemented and enhanced by vintage races and events like the Rennsport Reunion that celebrate the marque. Porsche has wisely supported such events as well. So many fans have been drawn to models like the 956 and 962 who never saw the models race in period. Audi is unlikely to have this kind of exposure for its racing heritage and its place in history will likely suffer for it.
So what’s next for Audi? DTM and Formula E.
We honor the results. We respect the effort, approach, dedication and passion. We respect the pace of technological development. We appreciate the exposure that Audi brought to the sport globally – not just at Le Mans. We enjoyed the interaction with the personalities and additional layers they added to the story on the track. We always feared the escalating budgets and the small number of players in the LMP class. We knew maintaining both the Porsche and Audi programs within the same corporate family was borrowing time. To invoke the cliche, we’re thankful for the experience but sad that it is over. By any measure, Audi and all of the staff and drivers that wore the four rings as a part of the motorsports family should be proud of themselves.
A pit stop has many moving parts. Practice doesn’t eliminate the risk of error, but it does mitigate it. The importance ought to be clear by all of the big factory-backed squads doing full scale practice as the very last thing at the end of the very last practice before the Petit Le Mans race on Saturday at Road Atlanta. All the drivers for all the cars were busy doing the same thing.
During night practice when light is at a premium, one trick is to watch for a following car and use its headlights to illuminate your subject. In this shot, driver Johnny Mowlem pilots the #20 Prototype Challenge car at the exit of Turn 7. The headlights of the following car provided additional lighting along the left side of the car, giving the camera more light to work with and making for an interesting shot.
Night practice or racing is always a treat. The darkness brings the cars to life in different ways. The Thursday evening practice prior to the Petit LeMans will never be about outright pace, but rather getting cars, crews and drivers some time to acclimate and prepare for the last two hours or so of the race.
Rennphoto.net 