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I went to this race. I’d say at the time no one thought pescarolo had a chance, there was no huge shock that Audi kicked ass as their cars had been raced in the LeMans series earlier that year. The big question was if the injectors would fail (and issue the car had been having) and the gearbox which got hammered by the torque as other posters have mentioned. It sounded so strange, other cars you could hear coming almost a mile away. The R10 you heard a whistle from the turbos and the squeal of wheels but the engine itself was really quiet.

This was such a good video

Joe way kim santos

So interesting, thanks for a great channel! I’d love to know more about the European Fords too 👌🙏

1100 newton meters is 811 foot-pounds of torque, btw.

All Le Mans engines of the time, since there were radical differences in engine size, aspiration, cylinder count etc, had air restrictors on them to try and equalize performance, subject to ongoing tweaks in restrictor size to maintain parity. I asked one of the Audi mechanics at an ALMS race the car was at back then "If you guys took the air restrictor off, how much power could it make?" The mechanic replied "Well, I did ask one of the German engineers a similar question, and he gave me a little bit of a round about answer. He said with the air restrictors removed, they would reprofile the camshafts, re-map the engine at a minimum to get the most out of not having the restrictors. So, I asked him "1,000 hp?" and he pointed his thumb up and waved it as if to say it could easily do more than that, but also have to consider that the engine needs to last for a 24 hour endurance race. As you get way above the current power levels, the immense pressures generated at such power levels will have a negative impact on reliability." Audi's LMP cars were always technological marvels, and even cooler than that is their race cars often acted as test beds for technology that were soon to make it into production cars. The R8 began using (T)FSI in 2000, by 2004 that injection technology would be in their production gasoline cars. Commonrail injection had been used by Audi in V8s since about 1999, but it was really limited to that one engine for a number of years until the mid 2000s. The VW Pumpe Duse injection technology could actually obtain higher injection pressures than those early commonrail systems. The R10 was their test bed for significantly higher injection pressures with commonrail engines PLUS they put particulate traps on the race car, both because those were something that would be globally required on production cars soon, but also because the rules stated the cars could not emit visible smoke. This is a big part of the reason why the cars were so quiet as well, closed-cell particulate traps are some of the most effective mufflers out there. In a time where other racing series were either stuck in the past or in tightly controlled formulas where minimal innovation was happening (IndyCar) and F1 had wild engine technology that had very little practical use cases in a production car (expensive, exotic materials, insanely high revs with pneumatic valve closure), Le Mans prototypes were in the middle allowing very innovative engine technology that did indeed go onto be implemented into production cars. FSI (aka GDI) was not practical in F1 because the engines revved too fast to accurately meter fuel with direct injection. They were fueled via individual throttle body injectors that could operate without pulsing the injectors at wide open loads... But clearly for lower-revving Le Mans prototypes and road cars, there is a huge advantage to direct injection: you can run substantially higher compression ratios and boost levels without pre-detonation. And it gives higher volumetric efficiency, as the engine can injest 100% air, close the intake valves and begin compressing just air prior to injecting the fuel directly into the combustion chamber.

I wonder if the BLM and the DEI Woke pack can achieve something like that?.

Common rail fuel injection was almost 100 years old at the time, not a new technology.

The Japanese, and the rest of the World, don't use imperial measurements!!!

That was actually a terrible car and what did it win? Nothing, sports car are race car you can drive to the track. MGB is the perfect example. I kept Porsche from winning an SCCA national championship for decades. Toyota GT had no point? Marketing only actually no substance…..

it's Ferdinand Pee-yekkk!

Sitting on spectator hill at Road Atlanta for start of Petit in 2008 when Allan McNish crash the R10 in the formation lap. We sat there looking at each other saying, "There's no way that just happened, right?"

Team Audi is the best race team ever .. From the s1 Quattro to Pykes peak..special memories

Love the channel man! Keep it up!

It had nothing to do with torque. Diesel engines benefited from some very favourable rules and this Diesel engine made more power than most of the gasoline engines it ran against. Naturally aspirated engines had smaller restrictor plates and turbocharged ones were limited to 7psi, while Diesels were allowed to run 28psi of boost. Torque was irrelevant, the Diesels were making more power, that's why they were faster. The Diesel engines were at the limit of what the materials could handle, while the gasoline engines could rev much higher and/or run much more boost and make hundreds more horsepower if not for the restrictive rule set. Also no one ever mentions that fuel used on these Diesel engines. Shell provided the Diesel fuel for these and had a cetane rating of 70, compared to road Diesel around 50. When you inject Diesel with a cetane rating of 70 at nearly 3000psi, for all intents and purposes it behaves thermodynamically like a gasoline engine (fuel burns pretty much instantaneously). It's not like the Diesel engine in your Golf at all.

I'm sad about Audi... My S6 C8 (55 TDI) engine died on 70k km few days ago...

imagine if they used a 1.9 TDI :O the other cars would not stand a chance

The air parted in front of it out of courtesy.

These are great engines but do not run the emissions the road going ones do. The emissions are the weak spot of any diesel

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Consider supporting us on Ko-fi so we can keep making awesome content for you guys! :) ko-fi.com/motorlegends

Keep up with this type of content. Really love it and quality is top notch 💪🏻

Another excellent production with very professional narration and pictorial content. It is also quite interesting to know that Toyota produced a convertible because Sean Connery was too tall to fit in it. I have a recommendation in mind but I don't want to mention it because I reckon in a week or two the next episode will be better than what I am thinking, after the great surprise this episode was.

The best car channel ❤

It easy they cut the Power of gas cars ,add wright to the gas cars

I bet every single bolt on this car was torque to yield and one time use. This is coming from a mk4 jetta owner having to do an engine swap. The only thing not torque to yield on that stupid motor seems to be the oil filter cover

Not an OM606...so still slow for a diesel.

THESQUIDD is that you?

Wait…. This video’s definition of “champion” is literally me! I’m 14 and I love modifying things. Right now I’ve been modifying rc cars you would find in Walmart (rebuilding the gearboxes, adding extra drive motors, increasing steering angle, etc) to make them as powerful as possible. im an inspiring mechanical engineer, and hope to work at EMD or GE on their big diesel electric locomotives someday. do I have something going here?

now Audi is going to do the same thing in F1 cant wait

800 foot pounds of torque is enough to pull the house in half.

It wasn't the first time a Diesel dominated a 24h race. BMW managed to do the same about 10 years earlier on the Nürburgring.

I heard George Floyd originally designed this diesel engine and some stupid racist.White people stole the idea and pretended they invented it

Great video sir

Until Peugeot distroyed audi

I grew up with TDIs, learned to drive in a 79 Rabbit TDI, drove to uni in a 04 Passat TDI, bought a Golf wagon TDI later and even got it bought back from VW after the diesel scandal. Too bad really, but have to wonder where TDI technology would be today without that scandal. 😢

They destroyed even their costumer with 3.0 tdi power 😂

I'm an engineer. I promise you, humans are far better engineers when they have to use their head as opposed to computers for FEA, CAD etc.

These stupid Keyboard Sounds... 🤦🏻‍♂️

He brings it from bold idea,ha?? Oh you crazy fkr😂😂💕💀👹

This chanel needs more followers...The fact this video has more likes then you do followers is mind boggling to me man! Keep grinding 🤘

*_"Win on Sunday - Sell on Monday"_*

Not everyone. the Porsche RS Spyder outran them on some U.S. circuits.

Le Moan!

I attended the Petit Le Mans race at Road Atlanta for 5 of the annual event between 2007 & 2012. It was as amazing a weekend each time as could be. my recall of it yields the observation that the C6 Corvettes & the Panoz were the eye candy / what everyone was "Oooing" & looking at all weekend but there was an aura around the Audi teams & these Diesel powered beasts which was tangible. The 3-4 TDI cars were in a seemingly race of their own more than once. Simply dominating race cars , the vibe was who will win & which position did you get after the Audi team ,of course.... occasionally you get a car that is incomparable & for this window of time in history,these Audi were top racecar during turn of the millennium 2000s.

Guy is talking about champions lists few yanks😂 talk about real sportman like messi or max verstappen

I was there.

Clarkson isnt an engineer, a designer, a proven race winning driver, a chemist specialising in fuels or anything other than a journo who has sat his arse in a lot of cars. His opinion on what diesel is? Its right there next to that grain of salt.

Kobe Bryant mastered the travel

As reliable as a FIAT... so it only broke down twice a week??