- Le Mans prototypes show development steps in ultra-lightweight design
- Lightweight design quality of monocoque more than doubled since 1999
- Head of Audi Motorsport Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich: “Many of the ultra-lightweight design ideas from motorsport have the potential of positively influencing the development of our production models.”
Four more weeks until the Le Mans 24 Hours celebrates its 90th anniversary. Audi has set standards with its ultra-lightweight design in the area of the sports prototypes. In 15 years of development, the motorsport engineers have achieved best marks.
Since 1999, ultra-lightweight design has been playing a central role with Audi’s Le Mans prototypes (LMP). Materials, such as CFRP (carbon fiber reinforced plastic), harbor major potential for optimizing weight.
“In the space of 15 years, we’ve also achieved major progress in the area of ultra-lightweight design,” stresses Head of Audi Motorsport Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich. “Audi’s LMP sports cars have continually become lighter, stiffer, safer in crashes and more efficient. There is hardly another motorsport discipline in which the creativity of the engineers is rewarded as highly as it is with the Le Mans prototypes. Whether in terms of engineering design details or materials: many of the ultra-lightweight ideas from motorsport have the potential of positively influencing the development of Audi’s production models. Reducing the weight of the cars is the key to our successful future – in motorsport and in production.”
Even in its first LMP sports car – the 1999 R8R – Audi used a carbon fiber monocoque. Audi has significantly been reducing weight to this day:
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