WEC: Audi to Leave Championship at end of 2016 Season

Sad to see Audi go they've been a great support to sportscar racing in general in the last few decades. I would have liked to have seen them one last time at Silverstone next year.

I really like the current LMP1-H cars they are amazing pieces of technology and the racing between them has been pretty good in the last few years. Toyota lost their way a little but are now getting their pace back again. So fingers crossed for an epic final few rounds :thumbsup:

When you watch the cars at the race track their rate of acceleration is incredible out of the corners, they are certainly something special (and they sound hell of a lot better than an F1 engine! :laugh:)

All the classes provide top racing at the moment :)

You will never get back to Group C, the main car manufacturers want clean burning, electric driven marketing at the moment. They all want to promote "clean" racing and for that reason I can see more and more manufacturers going over to Formula E (whether you love it or hate it). That's why you have hybrid engines in F1 because of the way they wish to promote their brands around the world.

Mind you being a Mazda fan if they want to allow rotary hybrids that would be cool! ;)

I'm wondering if a good cost cutting measure would be to copy the GT3 rules slightly and make the teams run the same car (with certain modifications allowed) for at least three to four years, Audi were literary building an all new car every year and then developing it so that must have cost millions (to put it mildly) and of course the teams were doing 100's of hours of testing at places like Paul Ricard.

Yes from an enthusiast point of view it would be better to get back to a "normal" set of engine rules, this might allow the manufacturers to sell privateer cars again, you could even make this a requirement. As it stands at the moment the cars are too expensive and too complex to sell to customer teams and that is a shame I will admit.

The ACO are also partly to blame as well. Yes it's ok to make changes to the cars to improve safety but sometimes their regulation changes do make me wonder. The racing is good, leave the cars alone.

I'll still make the trip to Silverstone next year though, with GT3 this is still my favourite form of racing.
 
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A few from my collection from this year at Silverstone.
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DSC_3876-2.jpg


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I like Formula E and watch the short and tough races within an inch to the walls. They have a great driver field where everybody could win, but many ending in the DNF-class at the end. More action within an hour than some WEC-races offer in 24h especially in the LMP1, where everything is about reliability and nothing about fights with opponents. I watch the highlights after but watching the races is :sleep:
 
I like Formula E and watch the short and tough races within an inch to the walls. They have a great driver field where everybody could win, but many ending in the DNF-class at the end. More action within an hour than some WEC-races offer in 24h especially in the LMP1, where everything is about reliability and nothing about fights with opponents. I watch the highlights after but watching the races is :sleep:

Each to their own my friend, but the racing in WEC has been pretty good this year. It's not about reliability anymore though (they are flat out almost all the time in the 6hr races). Yes sometimes it's about strategy as well but that's the same in most motorsport. I still find it my favourite race series along with BTCC, and Blancpain :)
 
In analysis Audi has just been hit by the perfect storm of crap.

A stablemate company is beating them the last 2 years, both in Le Mans and WEC season.
Diesel engines don't look like a good idea for the future like they did when Audi started using them.
Plus dieselgate (even forgetting how much it hurt VWs finances) makes it completely impossible to advertise them.
Or....VW chipped the Audi's LMP1 with the same faulty software as their road cars and they are forced to leave. This hybrid and electric nonsens has taken long enough.
Or....
Audi has fallen victim of its own mother, because she just had a new baby. A new favorite. And spoiling two kids is just too expensive in this world. Together with the incredible rebuy of 15,000,000,000 worth of cars plus the fine of 4,700,000,000 the choice was easily made.
 
to each it's own of course,
they can promote clean racing all that way ( omg, clean racing? .. what's next,.. MMA where they can't touch each other???.... ) but if generally it's on people to make the vote/decission

if the number of viewrs goes down to 1 milion from 100 milion, then probably FormulaE isn't the future ;)

not only it sounds bad, it also looks silly .. and no, I don't want to watch soemthign that looks weird and I don't like it ,

it will be very sad to see WEC go, but I'm fine with GT or touring car races ...
and it's not like it's going to be better next year either

2016-2017-formula-e-team-abt-schaeffler-audi-sport-race-car_100563984_h.jpg

:sick::sick::sick::poop::poop::poop:

and part that I dont' get, ... the chassis seems to be universal made by another company, .. engine is electric so I can't see peopel developing their own motor (it's pretty much same anyhow??)
so what's the point of BRANDS ?? .. if said brand is probably just sticker on the car?
 
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Best we can hope for when it comes to green racing is hydrogen fuel cells I'd say. But to reply to your comments about universal chassis etc. I'd imagine that's exactly why so many brands are jumping on board, Formula E is cheaper then a LMP1-H program, and judging from the media coverage lately gets you just as much if not more exposure.

But hey, green racing doesn't have to mean bad racing. Why just look at that ECOboost Ford up above. Heck it goes as fast as the LMP2 so long as it doesn't have to... you know.. Turn. :p
 
There is no such thing as "green" racing or transportation. It's just a fairy tail/tale (I forgot) to make us believe we should all go using electricity like mad men. Electricity to Europe is like oil to Arabia and USA or gas to Russia or cole mines to China. I don't see any American or Russian or Arabic developping this hybrid/electric hype in racing . Oh and Belgium still uses worn and out of date power plants to produce most of its electricity....and then they communicate to us one shouldn't burn wood in a stovebecause its unfriendly for the environment , even more than a car??!!
Do not give me that BS. I want to see, feel and hear a race car, not look at vacuüm cleaners trying to make propaganda.
 
To Be honest i'm not suprised, Audi have alwayd been bad losers those ungratefull pric... no lol im kidding,

but i never was an audi fan, and hope this doesn't kill LMP1, wish them luck in TCR their car looks pretty cool unlike their P1 contender over the last decade,

Well in 2019 BMW is coming to P1, so i think 2 german manufactures are enough :D

If Nissan just weren't such @$@$@$@ and just came back with their awesome wrong wheel drive project :D
 
While i admire Nissan's innovation and new ways of thinking. I can't help but think if they went with a more "traditional" style of car they would still be here in LMP1. I dont know too much about GTR-LM but when Nissan annouced they were coming back to Le Mans i was hoping it would be along the lines of this... (And yes i know its only a concept drawing)
4586d2bc4c2ad990b1186f9efb7d98ef.jpg
 
Well in 2019 BMW is coming to P1, so i think 2 german manufactures are enough :D

If Nissan just weren't such @$@$@$@ and just came back with their awesome wrong wheel drive project :D

as in LMP1 ? ... never read that anywhere, only read about GTE
@nissan, yeah, gotta admire their innovation attempts, but why do it on ALL fronts ? .. they had the deltawing Failure, so for LMP1 they should have play it safe imo


there will be other forms of racing true, .. but I have to say that WEC felt like it's the best type of racing out there. Mixed classes, lot of overtaking, and often - even 6 hours were being decided in last few laps
 
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There is some talk of BMW coming to LMP1 with a "hydrogen" based hybrid but the rules don't currently support that so there is a lot of uncertainty involved.

Nissan had the right idea in building a low drag car just for Le Mans it's just a shame they implemented it so poorly.
 

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