RFM Front Page News

BOWMANVILLE, Ontario, Canada (September 2, 2006) — Frank Biela is looking forward to taking the new Audi R10 TDI out for its first race-distance run at Mosport International Raceway this weekend. “The R10,” he said, “does very well on fast circuits. Road America suited the car very well and that says to me that Mosport will also be a good track for this car, because there are more fast corners here than there were at Road America.” Although the unofficial practice positions of fifth and sixth don’t appear to show it, Frank said that the other cars ran new tires at the end of the session and the Audis didn’t, which was just enough to slide them into the lower end of the .5 second that covered the top six cars. He’s confident that this will change tomorrow.

Of course, the talk of the paddock since Sebring has been of the “whispering Audi” that sneaks up on you without warning, and Frank agreed with his teammates that this was the biggest surprise when he first got into the car. “You don’t realize,” he pointed out, “how much of your driving is done by the engine note, until you can’t hear that note! When you get over 120-130 in the R10, all you hear is wind noise. So you have to drive very much more by what you see on the display before you, which is not the way we have learned to drive. I think we all jumped out of the car after the first run and said ‘Oh, I can’t do this! I can’t hear anything!’ But after the first day of testing, we got used to it and we are becoming more confident each time we go out.” The crew and pitlane workers need to be on their toes as well, because their first indication that the cars are coming in may well be when they see them pull in.

Frank did a lot of the early development and testing work on the R10 and he said that the only ‘surprises’ other than the sound (or lack of sound) were good ones. “I was surprised at how good the car was right from the beginning,” he said. “The handling was nice, and the car was responsive from the first day. Developing a new car is hard work, but we were fortunate to start on a high level and, since people expect a lot from Ingolstadt, it was wonderful to be able to appear at Sebring with a car that was competitive right away.” Not that he’s cheerleading for the R10, mind you. “We’ve had our little fits,” he admitted, “but what new car has not? The Penske Porsche Spyders are very quick cars, but on certain tracks they had their difficulties and they have learned to work with and around them. Others have had the same experiences. But there were fewer changes to be made in the R10 than we anticipated and we’re very pleased with our progress to this time. Our goal is to show TDI [diesel] power to North America, that it can power a racing car and do it well, and I think we have done this.” (Incidentally, Frank attaches no particular significance to his development work. “I was called in first because I live closest to Ingolstadt,” he said. “All the drivers took part in the development work at one point or another, actually. It’s part of our work as drivers.”)

As for future projects taking TDI Power to other formulae, such as the DTM, Frank pointed out that current regulations do not allow this, but if the day comes that the regulations are changed, he has no doubt that Audi will be at the front of developing new technology for them, too.

Turning to the weekend and Mosport, Frank agreed that the track had been “Dyson Friendly” in the past few years and so far Audi have not worked out exactly why. Recently the regulations have been changed somewhat in Dyson’s favour, in the interest of competition equalization, and the new regulations will come fully into play this weekend for the first time. The No. 20 Dyson Lola was second-fastest in practice yesterday; however, conditions for the rest of the weekend will be much different from the sunny near-perfect conditions that we enjoyed on Friday. Rain is a certainty for Saturday and a distinct possibility for the race on Sunday, and since Mosport enjoys significant elevation change, there will be challenges for all the P1 and P2 cars to come. For one thing, in cases when there’s significant water on the track, due to the very low centre of gravity and flat bottoms the Prototypes have, they tend to aquaplane off the track if they hit unexpected water. “If you know where the track is likely to be wet,” said Frank, “and you know that your car bottoms at that point or near it, you can adjust the ride height in anticipation and that will help the car to do well on a wet track. But on a long track such as Le Mans, or a track where it is raining in one place but not in another, it’s not possible to be prepared for everything. Then you have to rely on your own skill and plenty of luck.”

It is possible that the No. 2 Audi, driven by Allan McNish and Dindo Capello, can wrap up the P1 championship at Mosport this weekend, and that is one of the goals of the whole Audi team, to help them if they can. Don’t think this means, however, that there are any team orders involved. “Emanuele and I,” Frank emphasized, ‘have our own race to run. We are out of the championship because we had a zero [DNF] at Sebring and missed three or four early races, but while we will do what we can to help the sister car, Audi does not want to win by poor sportsmanship. We’re here to ensure that the results for the weekend are good for Audi, because our goal is always to show that we’re a strong, professional team that is winning because we are best in development, best in teamwork and best on race day.”

The Radio Le Mans crew said at Sebring that TDI stands for “Total Domination Ingolstadt”. As in every weekend the brand new “Whispering Audi” R10 TDI takes to the track, Mosport is an opportunity to continue this thought in the consciousness of the American Le Mans Series and beyond.