Audi's all new R18 to compete in WEC 2016

For the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) and the Le Mans 24 Hours, Audi is emphasising on focal areas in the 2016 season - the Audi R18 that has been redesigned from scratch has almost nothing in common anymore with its predecessor. It features a more radical aerodynamics concept, including a new safety cell, its hybrid drive system is battery-operated for the first time, the V6 TDI engine has been revised, and new system solutions have been added.

As a result, Audi's LMP1 sports car is a vehicle that is more powerful and once more, clearly more efficient than its predecessor.

Power output of more than 986bhp delivered by the TDI and hybrid powertrain, 10 percent less fuel consumption than before - Audi is achieving new best marks under the efficiency regulations. The FIA WEC regulations have been providing automobile manufacturers with incentives to build increasingly efficient race cars since 2014.

Starting in the 2016 season, this competition will intensify, as the upper limit for fuel consumption will considerably decrease by 10 mega joules per lap at Le Mans.

All development engineers at Audi Sport were challenged to enhance the efficiency of the Audi R18. As a result of switching to the six mega joule class, the hybrid system, due to the regulations, now recovers 50 percent more energy. The car's aerodynamics concept is fundamentally new. Nearly all vehicle systems have been refined or redesigned. Consequently, energy consumption decreases, the race car has become lighter, and allows for more favourable packaging of the component assemblies.

This has resulted in an R18 that even visually, clearly differs from its predecessor.