Le Mans Series
Kolles plans Le Mans Series with Audi R10 TDI
© Planetlemans – Marcel ten Caat
The successful Audi R10 TDI is likely to appear again on European race tracks in 2009. While Audi will contest the 24 Hours of Le Mans as part of its factory commitment with the new R15 TDI in 2009, Dr Colin Kolles is planning to buy two Audi R10 TDI cars for his racing team. The privately fielded prototypes are planned to return to the venues of their greatest exploits in 2009: to the European-based Le Mans Series and to the 24-hour race at Le Mans, in which the Audi R10 TDI has not been beaten so far.
Since the 2006 season Audi has been cooperating with Dr Colin Kolles, who has entered two Audi A4 DTM cars in the DTM since that time. Now, the team owner based in Greding near Ingolstadt wants to extend his motorsport involvement to the sportscar area on his own initiative. The team plans to contest the 24-hour race at Le Mans on 13 and 14 June 2009 as well as the five rounds of the European-based Le Mans Series.
Audi Sport will sell two R10 TDI vehicles to Dr Kolles for this purpose and complement the agreement by a service package encompassing support for the private racing commitments by members of Audi Sport’s technical staff.
“We welcome the fact that Dr Kolles decided to take on this commitment and wants to purchase two Audi R10 TDI cars," said Head of Audi Motorsport Dr Wolfgang Ullrich. “While on the factory side of the house we are concentrating on the development and fielding of the new R15 TDI sportscar as well as on the DTM, we are pleased to see that the R10 TDI will be privately entered in future and that racing vehicles of the Audi brand will continue to be represented in the Le Mans Series. That is why we agreed to the sale of the cars. However, our involvement will be strictly limited to providing support under the terms of the service agreement."
In the 2006, 2007 and 2008 racing years, the Audi R10 TDI clinched as many as 22 overall victories in 38 worldwide entries. At the 24 Hours of Le Mans as well as in the final LM P1 classification of the American Le Mans Series during that time frame the Audi R10 TDI remained unbeaten and last year won the LM P1 class of the European-based Le Mans Series as well.
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Wonder is Audi will be made to regret this, if they end up beating the R15….. ?
Wonder if Champion Racing is going to do the same thing over here?
They need some top drivers to worry Peugeot in LMS!
I heard that Charouz Racing might be running two Lola Coupes with Audi R10 engines. And it would funny if the R10 beats the R15.
F1’s loss is Endurance racing’s gain. He will have more success in the LMS than he had all those years at Force India/Spyker/Midland/Jordan combined (hopefully). He should have been tired of the loosing and made this move a while ago on his own. But I guess it was love, and millons of LeMans fans are now glad he got fired. Now how to make him come to sebring…?
Audi will make sure the R10 doesn’t beat them. They won’t give them all the secrets of the car (setup data…etc). They might even give them 2006 spare parts not the ones developed in 2008.
This line says it all: “our involvement will be strictly limited to providing support”.
And the only way they would beat them would be to have top drivers a well drilled pit crew and of course plenty of testing time. In effect they would need a high caliber team. Something along the lines of Penske .
Did you all know Dyson racing has a far better pit crew than Penske? The ALMS had a pit crew contest in 2007 and Dyson beat all except Corvette. Dyson’s drivers can keep up with anyone as well. Yet Penske wasn’t sharing all the testing data with them and they didn’t get spare parts as quickly as Penske did.
Same with Luc Alphand and corvette racing, and Prodrive and Larbre when they ran the DBR9. So Audi will be keeping them in check.
I wonder how much he paid for both of those R10 TDI’s?
Will Kolles have a website or press releases? DTM is boring compared to the LMS.
good news, though as much as i hate to say it, they will never beat the factory Audi.
I wonder if Champion will be tempted to follow suit? It’s good news that Audi is willing to sell the R10 to privateers, despite it being “too complicated.” I’d venture to say that the ALMS needs privately run R10s more than the LMS but it would probably be hard for Champion to sell their business plan to sponsors. “We want to run an outdated car that will likely get beaten by the competition for the majority of the season.”
Former GP2 driver Christian Bakkerud is confirmed, as a Team Kolles-TME R10 driver in the LMS
DTM is very enjoyable to watch. The speed of those cars, how quickly they switch direction and the skills of the drivers it’s all exciting. But apparently the doctor has more time on his hand since he’s not running Force India in F1 anymore. I think he will keep the DTM program running as well.
With Audi not running a full season schedule this might be Peugeot’s year at LeMans. Testing just isn’t the same as the race.
So 5 diesel Audis at LeMans? If Acura would enter (with 3 P1 cars) this would be one of the best 24hr races in a long time.
So 8 diesels 5 Audis and 3 Peugeot. But did you hear Bamba about Charouz Racing might be adding two Lola Coupes in P1 with Audi R10 Tdi so it will be 10 Diesels at Lemans. I hope the two Acura Arx-02a prototypes will be at Lemans this year and yes it will be the best 24hr race in years.
Wow Audi is marketing that engine, I never knew anythig about the Charouz deal. Maybe that’s why they’re not racing themselves.
If Acura wanted to go I think they would give Lowe’s Fernandez a P1 chassis. Adrian was the fastest in P2 in 2007 his first time there.
No wonder the Charouz deal/Aston Martin is over, if it’s really true.
this is great new that the audis will still be run in the 24 hours of lemans also i really hope the acuras come to lemans as well i think they could run with those audis