Photo : - Audi Motorsport

11/24 - Saturday, December 11 - The Audi R15+ resurrected

We thought we had bidden farewell to the R15 at the 1000 km of Zhuhai last month but it will make one gallant last stand in Florida, where it first appeared two years before.

Despite its triumphant debut at the 12 Hours of Sebring 2009, the Audi R15 TDI has long suffered from the comparison with its ancestors. Beaten by Peugeot at Le Mans and Petit Le Mans, it was profoundly changed last winter. However, the 1 000 km of Spa Francorchamps and the qualifications of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, it was still running a slight deficit in top speed against the Peugeot 908 - which may explain the move enclosed cockpits with the R18.

Nobody could have predicted the triple success at the 24 Hours of Le Mans 2010, not even Dr. Ullrich whose tears at the finish betray the uncertainty he had felt the weeks preceding the race. Slower than their rivals, the three-R15 "Plus" kept the pressure on at all times and brought about the demise of French V12.

In three months time at the 12 Hours of Sebring, the Audi R15 will end its career where it had begun. Ingolstadt's engineers have promised yesterday that evolution "Plus Plus" would be entered in Florida. But whatever happens in this final race, the fourth generation of Audi prototypes will go down in history as the worthy successor to its predecessors, something that was perhaps doubtful on Saturday, 12th June 2010 at 15:00 hours.

Julien Hergault

Photo: SEBRING 12 HOURS SEBRING FLORIDA, March 22, 2010. On 19 March 2011, the Audi R15 will end his career where it was so brilliantly begun two years earlier.