Kudo's to Audi for yet another great season, though this is one team I love to see sweeping up the championship year after year, especially this year with a new chassis and engine. Eight starts, eight first place finishes. Other cars are faster and nimbler, however it doesn't match the Audi in terms of one key thing: reliability.

Looking forward to next year, especially with new manufacturers such as Peugeot and Acura.

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those all your shots? amazing.

Photos were from Audi media.

I wished I was at Laguna Seca (or Laguny Seca as the Germans wrote), maybe next year I'll try and make it to another race along with Mosport.

McNish did what Schumacher should have done today...

Great day for motorsports today, F1, ALMS and even the Champ car race was worth watching.

The ACO wants to promote new technology with the 24 hours of Le Mans, and this fits Audi's marketing strategy I believe.

What the ACO (and IMSA for the ALMS) needs to do is to ensure that they have a level playing field in all classes, and I agree there. You have one car that slaughters the rest of the field in that class turns off the other competitors and makes it less interesting for the spectators. For the diesel, they didn't really know how well the diesel would do, so this year was for learnings as Audi showed to the ACO/IMSA them just how well diesel did perform in competition vs the petrol. Therefore the R10 received some adjustments mid-year, a restrictor and less fuel, while Dyson had their cars lightened. Dyson's cars were faster than the R10, along with the others too, but they didn't have the reliability, tire life or strategy to win. Remember last year? The R8 was heavily adjusted. They had a hard time passing cars, even in the P2 and GT1 class, and they were getting passed easily on the long straight at Le Mans.

Audi wasn't the only one to go through this. The Corvette boys this year had a real tough time. They got additional weight adjustments to the point that it was really hurting them IMO, and Aston Martin was loving it. I found it a bit, what's the word I'm looking for, unhappy? when the Aston Martin team was asked if they were coming back next year and their response was something like "well it depends on the new rules and regulations for next year". Another words, if Aston Martin wasn't going to win any more races in the future, they wouldn't come back. And in all fairness, Aston Martin was quicker than the Corvette in most of the races (well the ones I managed to watch) but at the same time, the Chevy team won due to better strategy.

The ACO has already adjusted the rules for next year for all classes actually, so hopefully, there aren't too many drastic changes mid year.

Wow this was a long post.....

You stud. ;-)

They had to pullout amid stiff competition and unsafe races because of spectators. By 1986, Lancia was already outdoing the Audi and Peugeot had a new entry with the 205.
But in TransAm and IMSA GTO, Audi had to pull out because of unfair rule changes anf weight increases which was levied against them to slow them them. Which would have made them slower than competitors.

WRC was just getting way too stupid in the horsepower.... 600+ hp for rallys, crowds standing right by the road (which would be awesome though!) but at the risk of killing out a bunch of spectators if one of the car lost control.

The S1 car was already difficult to control and required a lot of driver input compared to today's cars.

Too many concussions, not enough RAM........

Not sure if Audi pulled out afterwards because the DTM changed the specs or for some other reason.

advantage due to their Quattro system. I could have sworn I read that on the forums somewhere. I remember not believing it when I heard it, but the poster managed to convince me somehow.

Goes to show that not everything you read on the internet is true! LOL.

So why did Audi leave WRC then?

Group B was just getting rediculous with the insane horsepower and it was a disaster waiting to happen which did happen I think.... accident that killed a spectator or two in the mid 80s. After that, either Audi pulled out in 86 or the series was cancelled.

Audi's still "participating" in some way, well, more like the VW family with Skoda participating in the WRC, but I don't think we'll ever see anything that mad or awesome compared to Audi's participation with the introduction of AWD.

This is also mentioned in the video that I posted above, but I stole this quote from wikipedia.

"However, everything was to go tragically wrong on the "Lagoa Azul" stage of Portuguese Rally near Sintra. Portuguese national champion Joaquim Santos crested a rise to find the road blocked with spectators crowding to see the fastest cars come through. Trying to stop, he lost control of his RS200 and plunged into the crowd. Thirty-one people were injured and three were killed. All the top teams immediately pulled out of the rally and Group B was placed in jeopardy.

Disaster struck again in early May at the Tour de Corse. Lancia's Toivonen was leading the championship, and once the rally got underway he was the pace setter. Seven kilometres into the 18th stage, Toivonen's S4 flew off the unguarded edge of a left hand hairpin bend and crashed into a ravine. The car's under-slung fuel tanks immediately ruptured and set fire to the dry undergrowth. Only a cloud of smoke and the lack of Toivonen's car at the finish indicated that something was very wrong. By the time rescue workers made it to the remote spot (some 30 minutes, by some accounts) all that remained of the car was a blackened frame with the remains of Toivonen and co-driver Sergio Cresto inside. With no witnesses to the accident, it was impossible to determine what caused the crash. Some cite Toivonen's ill health at the time (he reportedly was suffering from flu); other suggest mechanical failure, or simply the difficulty of driving the machine"

Crazy spectators
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I saw the factory 100s at the Niagara Falls GP in 88. Heywood and Rorhl (sp?) pulled out a 2 lap lead then started playing with each other, simultaniously passing lapped cars on either side. The cars were just too much better than the competition at the time.