News broke out earlier this week that Audi will be leaving the World Endurance Championship (WEC), which includes the Le Mans 24-hour race at the end of this season. Therefore, the German manufacturer’s last race in this category will be the 6 hours of Bahrain on November 19 this year, when Audi’s R18 race car competes in the LMP1 class for the final time.
The departure of Audi from Le Mans and other endurance races is undoubtedly big news and is already sending shockwaves across the motorsport scene. After all, endurance racing has been dominated by Audi since the start of the previous decade.
Since the year 2000, the 24 Hours of Le Mans - the most prestigious endurance race of all - has been won by an Audi on 13 occasions.
Although there were rumours of Audi’s departure in recent weeks leading up to the announcement, a lot of people have expressed shock at the announcement. But considering a few factors, the news is no real surprise, even if you ignore the recent rumours.
Cost cuts needed
In official statements, Audi are saying that they are backing out of the WEC to focus their attentions on Formula E, a fully-electric racing series which is currently only in its third season.
Audi, like other brands owned by the Volkswagen Group, is shifting its strategy towards electric cars. Also, other big manufacturers like BMW, Jaguar and Mercedes are getting involved in Formula E too as we charge towards a more electric centric future for road cars. But this alone doesn’t explain Audi’s departure from endurance racing.
There’s the elephant in the room, which Audi won’t speak about publicly but is undoubtedly casting a looming shadow over proceedings – and its name is dieselgate.
The revelations of dieselgate hit the Volkswagen Group more than a year ago now, and the company still needs to put billions of pounds aside to pay for compensation. Therefore, costs must be cut in places and since VW have a lot of motorsport projects going on at once, they were always likely to be a primary target.
Of all the motorsports to back away from, ditching endurance racing may seem absurd at first when you consider Audi’s success and the ways in which the manufacturer broke new ground. Audi was the first manufacturer to win Le Mans with a diesel car, and the first to win the race with a hybrid too.
Audi championed how the technologies developed for endurance racing cars could trickle down to benefit its road cars. But this argument does not hold up as well as it used to, for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, Audi’s recent Le Mans racers have used diesel-electric hybrid powertrains and promoting diesel car technology does not seem particularly wise or relevant to the VW Group’s interests anymore. After all, diesel cars sold by VW-owned brands have been at the centre of dieselgate.
VW and Audi’s long-term plan is to move away from diesel technology in favour of electric cars. Making a fully-electric race car that could compete with the cream of the crop at Le Mans would surely require a humungous investment – one which can’t be afforded nowadays.
If Audi’s owners want their racing programme to align more with the brand’s electric future, focusing more on a series which is already focused on electric racers and runs on a smaller budget makes sense. Enter Formula E.
One race team is better than too many
Besides all that has already been mentioned, taking Audi out of the equation doesn’t mean the end of the Volkswagen Group’s involvement in endurance racing. The motoring giant still has the current Porsche racing team, which has been involved since 2014.
VW Group have had the luxury of spending hundreds of millions of pounds so that two of its brands could fight each other for Le Mans victory, but when major cuts become required the idea must seem like overkill.
Formula E is still in its infancy and does not have the profile to match the World Endurance Championship yet. While it will feel weird and possibly even saddening to some to have Le Mans without Audi next year, the brand’s new strategy seems like the best it can go for considering the circumstances and future product plans.
