It seems that Audi and Peugeot's winning ways have not gone unnoticed by the powers-that-be in the assorted racing series in which they compete. Whenever a design does well in racing, you can count on a few things happening, usually either other teams begin using that particular technology, rule modifications are made to minimize its advantage or it gets banned entirely. This seems to be exactly what is taking place with the turbo diesel engines now being used in the Le Mans racing series. The Automobile Club de l'Quest, the sanctioning body of the series, will mandate smaller air-restrictor size and reduced turbo pressure for the hugely powerful oil-burners.

Other changes will be made across all teams and cars, regardless of fuel type, including smaller rear wings, one tire gun in the pits and no tire heaters. These latter modifications are supposed to make the cars a bit slower and make them cheaper to operate. Perhaps Peugeot had an idea that changes might be made when it developed its new hybrid racer. As technology marches on, so must the rules ... and the teams' attempts to stay one step ahead.


[Source: Autosport]

Audi has clinched its third consecutive P1 class championship in the American Le Mans Series with the diesel-powered R10 TDI. The driver pairing of Lucas Luhr and Marco Werner came out on top after a disappointing race at the Detroit Grand Prix this weekend. Luhr spun into the wall on lap 13 and the teammates went on to cross the finish line third overall which would have kept the championship race open at least until the Petit Le Mans next month. Unfortunately for Fässler and Pirro, their car was disqualified for being about 5 lbs underweight during post-race scrutineering. Also unfortunate this year is that Audi only has one season-long rival in the LMP1 class. At Petit Le Mans, the Peugeot 908s will be back from Europe and next year Audi will face competition from new LMP1 Acuras. Hopefully Acura will follow Audi and Peugeot and bring another diesel to the P1 class. Alternatively, they could get the hybrid system that will be used by the Honda Formula 1 team and apply it to the prototype. Either way, the efforts to promote green racing in the ALMS will likely heat up the competition.

[Source: Audi]

Last March, Peugeot brought its diesel-powered 908 HDi LMP1 prototype to Sebring for its first race outside of Europe as a warm up for the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The Peugeot demonstrated some amazing speed compared to its German rival - the defending champion Audi R10 TDI - but wasn't quite robust enough to last on the bumpy Sebring circuit. Peugeot has decided to return to North America in October for the Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta. Peugeot is bringing two cars this time around and they will be challenging Audi, Porsche and Acura, not only for the overall victory but also for the Green Challenge. The Atlanta race will be the debut of ALMS' Green Challenge which will award points on formula based on fuel efficiency, and total net carbon emissions. The car with the best combination of low carbon footprint and performance will win. Next year ALMS will run the Green Challenge throughout the entire season. In the meantime, this race should prove to be another epic between the French and German diesels.

[Source: American Le Mans Series]

Ever since the debut of the Audi R10 in 2006, the mighty diesel-powered sports cars have been running on a gas-to-liquid (GTL) diesel fuel supplied by Shell. For the 2008 running of the 24 hours of Le Mans coming up in a few weeks, Audi and Shell will try a new blend that combines the GTL fuel with a BTL (biomass-to-liquid) fuel supplied by Choren. Choren is a German company that has been collaborating with Audi's parent company Volkswagen to develop the BTL diesel branded as SunFuel. Like cellulosic ethanol, BTL is produced from non-food biomass like wood chips. Choren plans to have the worlds first commercial demonstration plant open in Freiberg, Germany within a year. A small percentage of BTL is being mixed into the GTL fuel for this year's race. This will be the first ever use of second-gen biofuel at Le Mans. Shell's GTL fuel is branded as V-Power and is sold at over 7,000 stations in Europe.

[Source: Shell]

Two years after its racing debut at the 2006 Twelve Hours of Sebring, the Audi R10 TDI is making its first ever visit to the classic Spa-Francorchamps track in Belgium. The R10s are running in the European Le Mans Series for the first time this year and Spa will be a whole new challenge for Audi. The length of the Belgian track has been cut by more than half to 4.4miles from its original 9.3miles but it still remains one of the most challenging tracks in the world. The diesel-powered Audis will again be taking on the dominant Peugeot 908 HDis but the R10s are fueled by a GTL fuel supplied by technical partner Shell. GTL is a gas to liquid fuel produced from natural gas. GTL has an advantage over conventional petroleum diesel in that it is free of sulfur and produces less particulate emissions without any changes to the engine. The same processes used to produce the liquid fuel from natural gas can be used to produce fuel from a syngas derived from biomass. Audi's press release is after the jump.

After struggling somewhat in recent street races in the American Le Mans Series, the diesel-powered Audi R10 finally got back to the top of the podium on Saturday in St. Petersburg, FL. In spite of setting the fastest lap of the race early on, mechanical issues forced out the #1 Audi after 63 laps. The #2 car in the hands of Marco Werner and Lucas Luhr soldiered on and managed to cross the line just over eight-tenths of a second ahead of the Porsche driven by Romain Dumas. David Brabham brought the Acura ARX-01B that he shares with Scott Sharp home another five seconds back to take the third spot on the podium. The C6R Corvettes both completed their first race running on cellulosic E85 to take the first two spots in the GT1 class.

[Source: American Le Mans Series]