Audi To Bring Hybrid To Le Mans, New F1 - SHAKEDOWN

LEO PARENTE: Ferrari launches their new F1 car today,
apparently using LEGO building blocks construction
techniques.
And I thought my Italian nose was ugly.
The World Endurance Championship and the Le Mans
24 announce their entries.
There were some new car surprises on the grid,
including confirmation that the 2012 Audi R18 is a hybrid.
But we kind of knew that, thanks to some hinted words
from our Dayton a 24 Allan McNish interview, which we'll
share with you.
Toyota gets serious and elevates their program to a
two-car entry into the WEC and Le Mans 24.
As a pledge of commitment to the ACO, or, as I see, Toyota
helping the ACO give a big "Eff You" you back at Peugeot
for dropping out of their series.
And speaking of "Eff Yous," you saw this Ford
at the Dayton 24.
Chevy thought their deal with NASCAR Grand Am for Corvette
body work, wheels, brakes, would give them the race and
all the publicity.
I ran into Ford Motorsport head Jost Capito, and when I
asked him about the big Ford oval on the nose, he said he
had no idea of a sponsorship deal.
But at race end, when the Fords finished one, two, and
three, for the first time I think since 1966 when these
Mark IIs did it, Chevy knew what the deal was.
"Eff You" to them.

Today Shakedown has become the new race car show.
So many announcements.
Today the new Ferrari.
We've seen earlier the new McLaren and Caterham.
I'm saving all the F1 talk until all the
new cars are announced.
But the two most relevant design rule changes involve
the front of the car with maximum heights for the
chassis and a lower maximum for the nose, and at the back
of the car, with the requirement of above-the-car
exhaust exits.
No more overblown diffusers.
The front rules are giving us these stepped beaks to
maintain max airspace under the nose to get the most air
down there for downforce.
But McLaren said no, staying below the max measurements,
trusting their splitter and a better suspension geometry
with lower mounting points to get the grip.
What Red Bull does will tell us a lot about 2012.
Oh, wait.
Force India launched today too.
The nose?
Beaked.
Audi, Le Mans, and the World Endurance Championship.
When Toyota popped up with their TSO30 hybrid--
no batteries, by the way, energy capacitors--
and hit this link to hear the thing leave pit lane on
electric power alone, I started to think, is Audi
going to let these guys steal the tech spotlight?
Listen to Allan McNish a bit.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
-Toyota made a statement that they were coming in with a
petrol hybrid, and obviously, that's new technology into
this sphere of racing and the way that it is now.
Audi's been quite clear on their position on that, that
they will introduce technology when it's something that's
actually better than what they've got.
They're not into introducing technology just for the sake
of it or a PR or marketing tool.
That's kind of not their way.
I think we know that.
When the diesel came, I have to say that I thought that
they were a little bit nuts.
I thought that Baretsky, who's our engine guru, maybe had
overstepped the logic mark there.
It was diesel, for goodness sakes.
It was 2005 when he talking about this.
But when we turned up at Sebring and won the first race
with it, maybe he was quite a clever guy because he
basically had realized that this was better than what we
had with the already super efficient little V8 petrol
engine, the gas engine car.
And so the future--
we'll have to wait and see.
But Sebring is not far away.
And we've got Le Mans coming up, and we know we have to be
competitive, and we know we're going to have to fight some
stiff competition.
[END VIDEO PLAYBACK]
LEO PARENTE: The WEC and Le Mans 24 entry list confirmed
that two Audi hybrid will run the WEC with two standard R18s
added to the team at Le Mans.
And by the way, the Audis are flywheels.
In addition to Toyota, it seems that the Japanese are
back in the global racing business.
Dome is bringing their car back to Le Mans
to be run by Pescarolo.
Nissan, as you know, is everywhere in LMP2.
Mazda is going back to Le Mans, too, because Dyson
Racing got the invite as a result of the American Le Mans
Championship.
But how that Mazda 4-cylinder turbo is going to survive and
compete is beyond me.
But you know what?
Whatever.
Good to have the only Japanese La Mans 24 winner back at the
race, right?
And Honda is going bigger this year, running LMP2 with US
team Level 5 and the Starworks Team.
They ran that Ford-logoed
P2-finishing Ford DP in Daytona.
Oh, Honda Is also announcing a race team in the World Touring
Car Challenge.
Wow.
Incidentally, there's no BMW in WEC or at Le Mans.
Their focus really is DTM and America Le Mans.
OK.
But with the exception of the Audi and BMW programs, all of
this is some version of the customer
race car sales business.
So let's go back to Daytona for some insights as to what
that means for a team like the Audi R8 APR Group.
Here's APR CEO, Steven Hooks.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
-Well, to be honest, what you get is you get a container
that comes over on a Lufthansa flight and the car is strapped
down, and it's in basic delivery,
nothing really on it.
It's ready to run.
It will run.
It will roll.
It will do those things.
But none of the systems, like the final racing systems, are
installed yet in the car.
So there's a lot of work that has to be done.
So when you first get into the car, there's literally
hundreds of man hours required before you really can even go
out for that first test.
And then from there, you got to start with a basic setting.
So there's data that we get, that we start with, and then
from there, we actually work our way systematically through
suspension, through brakes, through chassis.
Even things like driver comfort are critical when you
first are getting a car up to speed.
Also, with each car, there's individual different things
that you can and cannot do--
shifting, all of these kind of things.
So each one of those has to be gone through and a whole thing
developed on each one so you know where to start from and
then move forward.
[END VIDEO PLAYBACK]
LEO PARENTE: By the way, here's a tidbit that compares
Grand Am racing to that European Le Mans style stuff.
Printed in the Audi R8 race car brochure, it states that
Grand Am specs have 70% to 80% less downforce versus GT3 due
to restricted aero parts.
Plus, Grand Am has no traction control, no ABS.
Also, in Monday's Daytona video, which you better be
watching, we also spoke about the new Aston Martin in the
Continental Challenge Series.
Developed by Multimatic, here's a bit more on that
customer car program from their CEO, Larry Holt.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
-You know, this isn't as new as it seems because the GT4
version of this car has been running in Europe now for five
or six years and had a very successful race career in that
it's won at the Nurburgring.
It's won an FIA GT4.
So it's not like a brand new car.
This is a version of that car.
There are some changes being made for it for Grand Am
competition, things like the roll cage and the fuel cell
and those kind of things.
But as far as durability and speed, we have a pretty good
handle on it.
As far as setups for a place like this, Daytona's a little
bit different--
infield, oval kind of thing.
So we're learning how to make that car go quicker here.
[END VIDEO PLAYBACK]
LEO PARENTE: OK.
How to end this show?
Well, I should tell you to subscribe to Drive.
And I should ask you to support the entire Drive team
and watch all the videos.
But I know you'll watch the Chris Harris video like his
last one, driving the RS200 and Audi Sport Quattro rally
cars, right?
But he missed the most exotic one of all--
this mysterious Group S Audi mid-engine rocket, the same
5-cylinder turbo as the Sport Quattro but a 1,000
horsepower.
Inspired by the RS200 mid-engine design, but built,
by all people, Roland Gumpert.
All the "kick 205 T16 and Delta S4 butts," but Group E
died, and with it, the planned Group S. So this little
monster sits in the Audi museum, not the record books.
Hey Chris, if you can get this thing on the road, I'll watch
your video 180,000 times myself.
[MUSIC PLAYING]