Three diesel-powered Audi racing sports cars at 78th Le Mans

Audi will start the 78th edition of the legendary 24 Hours of Le Mans on June 12/13 with a total of three diesel-powered racing sports cars. At a press conference of the organizer, the Automobile Club de l’Ouest (ACO), in Le Mans (France), Head of Audi Motorsport Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich announced Audi’s driver line-up for the most important sports car race of the year.
The Audi squad will be spearheaded by the Italian Dindo Capello, Le Mans record winner Tom Kristensen (Denmark) and the Scot Allan McNish, who in total, have scored twelve Le Mans victories. In 2008, they jointly clinched the eighth Le Mans triumph for Audi.
With eight wins under his belt, Tom Kristensen (42) is the most successful Le Mans driver of all time and has just been voted “sports car driver of the decade” by the British racing magazine “Autosport.” Allan McNish (40) was the runner-up in this voting. With a track record of 29 overall wins, Dindo Capello (45) leads the roll of honor in the American Le Mans Series by a wide margin.
The second Audi R15 TDI will be shared by Timo Bernhard (Germany), Romain Dumas (France) and Mike Rockenfeller (Germany). The two Porsche “factory” drivers Timo Bernhard (28) and Romain Dumas (32) made a strong showing in their first race for Audi at Le Mans last year. Audi “factory” driver Mike Rockenfeller (26) won the Le Mans Series in 2008 in the Audi R10 TDI and successfully began his 2010 season with an overall victory at the 24-hour race at Daytona (USA) at the end of January.
New signings Marcel Fässler (Switzerland), André Lotterer (Belgium) and Benoît Treluyer (France) have been selected to drive the third R15 TDI. Marcel Fässler (33) and Benoît Treluyer (33) have contested the 24-hour race at Le Mans several times before. André Lotterer (28) performed admirably last year on his Le Mans debut at the wheel of a privately fielded R10 TDI. Read the rest of this entry »

Racing Under Green

VW presents Racing Under Green. Season one of the Jetta TDI Cup. From a 16-year old Karting champion to a 26-year old Iraq War veteran, Racing Under Green delivers as much drama off the track as there is on as 30 young drivers race 30 identical clean diesel race cars for $100,000 and the dream of racing professionally. Filmed during the inaugural season of the Jetta TDI Cup Series, the documentary takes you to eight action-packed races across the country that will have you rooting, gasping, and cheering till the last lap. Read the rest of this entry »

Rally Fighter Goes Baja

It looks like the open source model can work for building new cars after all. The Local Motors Rally Fighter was to see at SEMA, and it is even more awesome in person than in pics. The interior on this pre-production car obviously still needs some work, but the rest is really impressive. Looking like some crazy mashup of a fighter plane and a SCORE rally truck. The passion of the principles is obvious and it’s clear that the vehicle has been well thought-out. While much of the Rally Fighter is unique, they weren’t bashful about borrowing off-the-rack parts where they knew good ones already existed – Ford F-150 uprights that have been proven at Baja, a Mercedes bumper support system, Fox off-road shocks, a healthy but frugal BMW diesel from the 335d, and the list goes on and on. The story of this vehicle is in its revolutionary yet simple development process – it was designed and developed by a community of car enthusiasts. New American car company Local Motors invites anyone with a passion for cars to collaborate in an open design process to help choose and shape the look of each Local Motors vehicle. Now home to over 4,000 car designers, engineers and enthusiasts, the Local Motors community is the largest of its kind – and the only to bring a new car to market.

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