Le Mans

Last October Toyota announced its participation in the 2012 FIA World Endurance Championship with a hybrid prototype race car. Today Toyota revealed some of the details of the TS030 HYBRID with surprises galore. The car uses a normally-aspirated 3400cc V8 petrol engine and a supercapacitor energy storage system developed by Nisshinbo. Remarkably, though the hybrid drive train has already been dubbed THS-R (Toyota Hybrid System – Racing), the team is still evaluating whether it will use a front motor system from Aisin or a rear motor system from DENSO. Read More

Toyota is the world's largest car maker and it is going sports car racing. Next year it intends to enter the hotly-contested LMP1 class with a car powered by a petrol hybrid power-train. Toyota's intention to promote its hybrid engine prowess appears certain to invigorate Le Mans racing as Peugeot already has a hybrid diesel under testing for next year and Porsche is rumored to have a hybrid race car ready by 2013. Read More

Last week Audi released sketches of a new lightweight all-electric Urban concept it intends to show at the Frankfurt Motor Show. Now, before we've seen the Sportback version in the flesh, it has decided to add an open-air Spyder version of the 1+1-seat technical study. Both cars feature a continuous, pillarless window area and doors that open upwards for ingress/egress in tight urban surroundings. Even more intriguing is the similarity between the Le-Mans-winning R18 and the Urban concept - see images inside. Read More

Nissan’s gamer-turned-racer Lucas Ordonez scored a podium finish in his debut drive in the world’s highest profile motor race yesterday. Ordonez’ Signatech Oreca 03 Nissan team led the LMP2 class of the 2011 Le Mans 24 Hours early, but a puncture dropped it to fiftieth place inside the first hour of the race. Undeterred, the team worked solidly to work its way back to ninth place outright and second in the LMP2 class, despite a second puncture late in the race. It’s just three years since Ordonez won the Nissan Playstation Academy. Check the image gallery to see Lucas living the dream of a professional racer during race week in front of 250,000 fans. Read More

By now most people have heard the first installment of the remarkable rise to prominence of Spanish virtual-to-real racing driver Lucas Ordonez. Four years ago, Lucas was an MBA student who liked playing Gran Turismo on his Playstation. He entered a contest among Gran Turismo's 60 million players, won the opportunity amongst 20 others to drive a real race car and try out for a spot in the Dubai 24 Hour race. He won the challenge, and he's been on the podium in almost every race since, leveraged his opportunity into a full-time racing career. As I write this, they're warming up his car for the first practice session of the world's most famous race - the Le Mans 24 Hour. Whatsmore, based on his recent results, he stands a good chance of winning! That's him in the centre, with the big trophy. Geeks interested in following the fortunes of one of their own can follow the links to track Lucas in the weekend's big race. Read More

Everyone who has ever played a video game knows that the skills required for success are essentially the same as a racing driver. Anyone who has raced knows different. So setting up the Nissan/Playstation GT Academy was bound to yield some interesting results. Essentially, they run a national contest and the best guys get tested in real cars and given an intensive program and then given a chance at the real thing, at a very high level. This is the inevitable fairy story – a fellow who played Playstation for fun until May 2008 has since established a successful international racing career entirely due to the series. Every time Lucas Ordoñez has been given the opportunity, he has performed, and his international racing career is living proof that you can turn virtual racing into the real deal. Read More

Since its first attempt in 1999, Audi has won the Le Mans 24 hour race nine times with the R8, R10 TDI and R15 TDI, equaling Ferrari’s all-time win record. Last Friday it unveiled the new R18, a closed carbon fiber monocoque coupe specifically developed for Le Mans with a 3.7-liter V6 TDI engine and another first for endurance racing – all-LED headlights. Read More

Not all that long ago, the mere thought of running a diesel in any form of motorsport would have had you laughed at. Diesel victories are now commonplace in long distance races thanks to the excellent power characteristics, reliability, the low fuel consumption of diesel engines and a battle between the two main TDI-engined cars in the form of the Peugeot 908 and Audi's R15. Audi Sport Team Joest added to the diesel legend on the weekend with a 1-2-3 victory using newly developed Variable Turbine Geometry (VTG) turbo-chargers on the R15's 440 kW V10 engine. The Peugeot 908s locked out the first two rows in qualifying and led the race until the 16 hour mark, but one by one, they suffered engine failure, and after 24 hours, Audi took all three steps on the podium. It wasn't exactly a rerun of the hare and the tortoise though, as the winning R15 racked up more 5,410 kilometers - more distance than has ever been achieved in 78 prior runnings of the French endurance classic. This was all the more remarkable in that it eclipsed a record set in 1971 by a Porsche 917 when the Hunaudières straight had no speed-slowing chicanes. Well done Audi! Read More

Bentley Motors finally took the wraps off its all-new flagship grand tourer, the Mulsanne, at the Pebble Beach Concours D’Elegance in Monterey, California on the weekend. The Mulsanne is inspired by the company founder W.O. Bentley’s crowning achievement in 1930, the 8-liter. Fittingly, W.O.’s own sensitively preserved 1930 company car shared the podium with the new Mulsanne in Pebble Beach. This early motoring masterpiece represented the last big Bentley that was designed, engineered and built from the ground up by Bentley engineers – until now. Read More