The World Endurance Championship series concluded last weekend in China. (24 hours of LeMans is the most famous race in the series.) Audi, and some Audi drivers won the manufacturer's and drivers' championships. Toyota won the last race--and one or two others in the series--and a Toyota team of drivers finished third. What's interesting is that the series-winning team and the Toyota team were both hybrids. I'm not sure from the attached article, but I think the winning Audi car was a diesel hybrid. Let's hope a lot of the technology gets transferred to the road. Anyway, here's an article put out by Audi, from an Audi fan website: AudiWorld News Maybe someone else can post a link to a more general auto-sports site to get more coverage of the other manufacturers.
I've been posting the races since LeMans. Here's a couple of the threads. Toyota's Racing Hybrid's Next Race | PriusChat The Last Race For The Toyota Hybrid Is This Weekend. | PriusChat
I was up 4 and 5am watching the last two races and the Audi crews seem very interested in how the Toyota was doing.
The Audi is a diesel/flywheel hybrid, the Toyota a gas/electric battery hybrid. The rules limit the total energy that can be stored and the minimum MPH it can be used at. 2012 Le Mans Hybrid Race Cars – Details on Hybrids Set to Compete in 2012 – RoadandTrack.com
Audi usually has two or three and once in a while, four cars. Generally just one is a hybrid. The Toyota pulls away from all of them. The two Toyotas were doing pretty good at LeMans (their first race) until the crashes. Even at that, the Audi juggernaut is going hmmmm....
Toyota won 3 out of last 4 races and didnt got into full championship with limited budget and by "accident" - they planned running 2-3 races this year total but since Peugeot shut off their WEC team, they had to step in or LMP1 class would have been disbanded. Both Audi's are hybrids this year, Toyota had 2 cars at one point but crashed one and didnt have budget for backup car . They use different systems, Audi is diesel flywheel like F1 I guess while Toyota's uses super capacitators and petrol engines, like their systems racing in Japan on GT cars (Supra).
Audi gets their system from Porsche, both now part of the VW group. It doesn't make as much sense in production cars because of noise, but the drivers seem to love it. Rules limit these hybrids to use the power over 74, otherwise they would be winning by even more.
The race rules say that you can not engage the hybrid power below this speed (74 mph, 120 kph) because it would give the hybrid car an unfair advantage. The cars have electronics that enforce the rule. The cars can charge at lower speeds of course.
I'm not surprised, and I wondered why the cars are labeled "Audi", given that when I think of the VW conglomerate and sports/racecars, I mostly think of Porsche. Are they changing brand images, now that "Porsche" has an SUV (!?)
Porsche does not have a car to fit the category, but are going to re-enter in 2014, with a car that will meet those new rules. Audi has been entering this race, which means cars and drivers. Porsche and Audi racing units are not integrated, but audi added the hybrid system from the porsche 911 GT3 R. If you are not in a race car governed by rules, a lithium battery is likely a much better choice than a flywheel. Porsche has such a design in its phev 918. IIRC race rules do not allow a battery, so toyota uses a capacitor, which acts like a battery I may have misspoken before. Toyota appears to be using the motor to drive the rear wheels, which eliminates the rule that hybrid can only be used above 120kph. This should give it an acceleration advantage versus the audi system at low speeds but may handle worse at higher speed boost.
Audi isn't a newcomer to racing. Audi (Auto Union then) & Mercedes-Benz were competing for speed records on the autobahn. In the old days Chevrolet & Pontiac competed on the track, not GM.
