Quote:
Originally Posted by Victor_RO
Didn't stop it from happening though. Le Mans '09 on the 64 car and on one or two more occasions during '08 and '09 in the ALMS. If it's going to happen, it's going to happen no matter how much it's engineered against. See the early R8's gearboxes.
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The issues that Audi had at LM in 2000 weren't gearbox related--they were having suspension joint failures, incluiding one that put McNish off the road at the test day. The #9 Audi damaged it's rear suspension on a curb, and the #7 had a tire blowout. The #8 didn't have any rear suspension issues and thus didn't near a rear end change.
In '01, the R8s probably had the same issues that the Bentleys did--either water in the electronics, or issues with the tire pressure sensors messing with the gearchange system. Both of which could've disabled the electronic elements of that system--one R10 at Mosport in '07 had literally a $5 electronic part take out the gear change system on that car.
Mechanically, these cars seem to be fairly sound, especially compared to about 10 years ago, but the electronics, that still seems to be the source of most issue of any type on these cars.
Of course, Audi fighting to get the weight of the R18 to be as light as possible motivated a lot of the design elements, but the fact that the suspension isn't directly connected to the gearbox does open up it seems the ability to work on the gearbox itself easier, even if it's only of acdedmic use in practice to change gear ratios--besides, one Ganassi DP at Daytona this year changed out a gear cluster for that reason, and I don't think it even lost a lap, though the change was done under yellow.