# Le Mans Series: 1000 Km of Catalunya Race Report



## [email protected] (Apr 9, 2004)

Private Audi customer team Kolles was struck by major misfortune at its debut in the European-based Le Mans Series (LMS): Christijan Albers and Christian Bakkerud started from the third row of the Circuit de Catalunya at Barcelona in their Audi R10 TDI cars. They were running in position three for part of the time before suspension damage forced them to retire in the final third of the race. The second R10 TDI lost a lot of time as early in the race due to a puncture and an excursion into a gravel trap. When the vehicle was pulled out, the rear was damaged in the process. After six hours, Michael Krumm, Andrew Meyrick and Charles Zwolsman occupied eighth place in the LMP1 class and thus still scored one championship point. 
* Full Story *


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## chernaudi (Oct 6, 2006)

*Re: Le Mans Series: 1000 Km of Catalunya Race Report ([email protected])*

I hope that what happend was bad luck, and not internal problems at Kolles-Audi may ditch the program or take it over.
As I wrote at another forum on this topic:
Inexperienced team and drivers-need Joest or Champion to run the team, and Audi's established drivers to drive the car to it's full potential.
I also have this(sorry if I PO any Twilight fans):
"Quote: 
The Kolles performance hasn't been nearly as impressive as it should have been.
Too often the cars looked a real handful, and there's no reason why they should be that far back. I suspect they're discovering that the R10 is not a simple, straightforward car, and the drivers might not have the overall experience to get the most out of it. I see them having a very uphill time of it this year."
Well, the Audi R15, R8 GT3 and the DTM has taken precident over anything else at Audi Sport-Kolles is just basically a LM insurance policy, and one that's quite likely unneeded considering the R15's potential against a now very restrained(read development stopped) Pug 908. Add in that Kolles' drivers have little to no sports car experience, and that Kolles has equally little sports car experience as a team, obviously there'll be a sharp learning curve at first.

"Quote:
Spot on. The likes of TK and McNish have always said the car isn't the easiest to drive and they are the best endurance racing has to offer. Add in the new rear wing which the car was not designed for and you've got a challenging ride I imagine!." 
I applogize for taking a page out of the Twilight books(namely Breaking Dawn), but I would like to characterize the Audi R10 as Bella Swan pre-vampire, and the R15 as Bella post-vampire.
The R10 was kinda(and still kinda is) Bella as a normal teenage young woman-clumsy, kinda a danger-monger at times, but at the same time smart and pragmatic under normal circumstances. But the clumsiness and awkwardness is was her's(and the R10's, with the exception of the ALMS in '08) most noticeable quality.
The R15 is kinda like Bella when she becomes a vampire-she retains her more admirable qualities(as a human), but gains more powers and becomes kinda this graceful, restained beast at heart as well. The Audi R15 is like that-it has the R10s more admirable qualities(speed, most notably), but has qualities also more similar to the legendary R8-agilty, handling, ballance, being able to take to bumps and rough track surfaces compared to the R10 a little better. Against the 908, the R10 had a handling advantage, but is wasn't enough to compensate for a lack of staightline speed compared to the 908. Audi has that now with the R15-still a little slower in a drag race with the 908, but it can stay close enough to tug a draft, and is more graceful and agile than the 908. Audi may want to dust off a couple of R15s for Spa now if they can get the funding to do so.
Hope I didn't spoil the books for fans of the Twilight series, but it's about the most logical comparsion I could come up with on short notice
"Quote:
Given the amount of Audi branding on there, I'd see some very penetrating questions being asked in Ingolstadt. In short, I would be equally unsurprised if the plug was pulled on this programme, or we start to see Audi works drivers in there to try and stop the rot - much like McNish appearing in the Oreca R8 in 2005."
At Oreca, McNish was added likely due to him not having a particulary good DTM season, as well as his chemistry with Ortelli.
However, the addition of Audi factory drivers is likely if the poor peformances continue.


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## [email protected] (Apr 9, 2004)

*Re: Le Mans Series: 1000 Km of Catalunya Race Report (chernaudi)*

I don't know about Twilight as I haven't read or seen it, but on this it was their first race. I'm sure they're learning a lot as they go. Christijan Albers ran at Laguna last year (perhaps as a feeler), but they're generally inexperienced with the car. I think Brad Kettler operated on one of the cars though as he mentioned that he was in Spain last week for the race. That should help the learning curve.
Pull the plug? I don't know. If the cost is low, I'm not sure they'd care too much so long as they don't look foolish. Kolles has strong ties with Audi Sport via DTM and the drivers are from his 2009 DTM roster. He's likely bankrolling it, so cost to Audi is probably very low and there are the benefits of exposure.
I doubt that they'll run the 24 Hours, but you never know. I've heard internally that you'll never see old cars competing with new ones where you could essentially see old tech winning against new tech, but since they're both TDI maybe that's less big a deal than R8s competing with R10s.
What's more interesting to me is why Oreca wouldn't be running R10s this year. Oreca operates the French Audi Driving Experience and ran an R8 at Le Mans in 2005 as a privateer. Their ties are also strong and they're a strong team, but they have Le Mans intentions and that might be one reason they didn't go with Audi if Audi does in fact not want R10s competing with R15s at La Sarthe.


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## chernaudi (Oct 6, 2006)

*Re: Le Mans Series: 1000 Km of Catalunya Race Report ([email protected])*

Consider that Hughes de Chaunac owns at least 51% of Courage Competition. So he if Hughes wants to build his own cars, he has the means to do so. However, that being said, I wouldn't rule out Audi power being in that team's future(they're currently using the AIM/Judd V10).
The car seems clumsy and awkward in the Kolles' drivers hands-the cars were a hand full, and if the esablished Audi factory drivers have said stuff to that effect(the R10 being a hand full except under perfect conditions), you can only imagine how these guys are handling it. And as we know that Kettler is an expert at setting up the R8 and R10(and as demonstrated at Sebring, the R15), Kolles must really be off the mark right now.
They only tested(with the factory Audi drivers and their R15s) at Eurospeedway a couple of weeks before Barcelona, and one driver reportedly said that until he got to the track, he'd only done less than 20 laps in the car. With the appearant lack of preparation(prep is an Audi Sport trademark, especially with Champion and Joest), one must wonder how seriously Audi is taking this. I understand that Audi is trying to save money for an ALMS program next year or for after Le Mans this year(or that's the assumption), but Audi isn't one to lay down and let people hand their asses to them without a helluva fight-Peugeot can attest to that many times over.
And Kolles is listed as having two entries for Le Mans this year. And we know that against 3 factory R15s, 3 factory 908s, and a private 908(Pescarolo's), I don't think that Kolles will have a chance unless all 6 of the factory cars have major troubles if this peformance continues. Kinda makes one wonder if Audi Sport is having second thoughts about cancelling Champion's planned 2009 ALMS program so suddenly?
I grant you, this is Kolles' first race, but the team has relatively little racing experience, let alone in sports car racing, and their drivers are very much up the same creek. IE, their performance and related articles seem as clumsy as this fictional person, at least before she becomes a vampire: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bella_Swan
Noteably being very clumsly. And when one is dealing with a car that's even been chacterized as being somewhat clumsy and stubborn by the Audi Sport experten, the team that's running it can't afford to do the same to have success with it.
Now guys like Champion and Joest, be it with the R10, and for sure the R8 and the R15(which in design idealogy can be seen as a hybrid of the R8 and the R10-getting rid of both cars less admirable qualities, while building on both machine's strengths), the story is of Bella when she becomes a vampire: a graceful, well oiled machine at work and everything is fused together as a coheiseve unit.
And I wouldn't write off AMR and Pescarolo's own gasoline cars taking some shots at Kolles-one of the Pesca's dominated at Barcelona before taking second to a Lola-Aston Martin.
Hopefully things will work out for Kolles, but if not, a certian short Indian man in Pompano Beach, FL is waiting for a phone call from Dr. Ullrich, and he's readly and willing to go when given the word.

_Modified by chernaudi at 2:35 PM 4-7-2009_

_Modified by chernaudi at 2:37 PM 4-7-2009_


_Modified by chernaudi at 2:39 PM 4-7-2009_


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