Audi LMP1 Discussion

[Simmi]

Hopefully they'll leave it in that livery.

Very purposeful. Stealth bomber on wheels.

[vincegail]

Agree with Beetle here. I don't regard the R18 as beautiful, but surely it does look very purposeful and resourceful, which makes it beautiful in some way.

Edit: seems that Simmi agrees with me

[Beetle]

Originally Posted by Simmi

Hopefully they'll leave it in that livery.

Very purposeful. Stealth bomber on wheels.

I freaking love that thing... I don't think I've ever been so excited about a new LMP car in my life!

[Victor_RO]

It's going to be even more spooky and freaky and impressive at night at Le Mans if all three cars stay in black.

[Rodger Davies]

It does look good, I imagine they'll want to move a little away from the presumably white base of the Porsche, so black with a touch of silver could work well.

Here's hoping

[TF110]

Imo its just a mash up of R15 and R18 up front. But thats not the final car of course. More details will be behind the front fenders.

[CTD]

Originally Posted by Victor_RO

It's going to be even more spooky and freaky and impressive at night at Le Mans if all three cars stay in black.

Will however make for boring pictures at night

Originally Posted by TF110

Imo its just a mash up of R15 and R18 up front. But thats not the final car of course. More details will be behind the front fenders.

Audi has never changed the overall design of their cars after the first presentation (with the R15/R15+ as an exception), so I think this is the car we will see at Le Mans next year.

[Victor_RO]

Originally Posted by CTD

Will however make for boring pictures at night

The decals will always get caught in the flash.

[deggis]

Original R18 (how lazy to use the same name) was presented in black too, so I'm not sure that will have much to do with the real livery. The red stripes are curious though but still looks way too simple to be a real livery...

...altough I wouldn't underestimate Audi in this area (the awful R15+ "lets throw some red paint over the car and see where it sticks" livery).

[Simmi]

I'm hopeful they'll go back to three subtly different liveries again for 2014.

[vincegail]

Originally Posted by deggis

Original R18 (how lazy to use the same name)

Renault has the rights to almost every R-number combination possible, so Audi has not much of a choice!

[CTD]

Originally Posted by vincegail

Renault has the rights to almost every R-number combination possible, so Audi has not much of a choice!

A new way of naming is possible, but unlikely
Ex. LM1 for Le Mans cars, DTM1 for DTMs and so on.

[Beetle]

Originally Posted by vincegail

Renault has the rights to almost every R-number combination possible, so Audi has not much of a choice!

How about Audi R18+?

[92scotland]

Interesting quote on the official Facebook page:

R18 is the name for all closed LMP1 cars from Audi. We do not change the names anymore - similar to not changing names for new road cars

The links here... it's hidden in a reply to 'Max Maier'
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...levant_count=1

Plus another reply says that the final livery will be 'revealed later in 2014'

[deggis]

Road relevancy even in that area then (sarcasm). I don't totally get that analogy and would make more sense if they had come up with some new name, a name not in the familiar Rxx format and then kept that for future.

[vincegail]

I really don't see the problem. The Porsche 911 has been named 911 for years now, only the internal Porsche name has changed (930, 964, 993, 996, etc. etc. etc.) They all look similar, but different altogether, as do the different R18's. I think it creates a sort of continuency and therefore familiarity for the not-so-deep-into-it-onlooker-like-we-are, which is good for the sport altogether.

[Acid09]

I hate it when manufacturers do that, hated it when Peugeot did it as a well with the 908.

Audi has a particular bad track record when it comes to usage of names though. I can't think of any other manufacturer that has abused the name of a legendary race car to sell a road car.

The R8 travesty continued when it came to the R8 LMS which, according to Audi, stands for "Le Mans Series", even though it was a GT3 car

So yeah, no surprise here, effective naming just isn't their thing.

[FstrthnU]

Originally Posted by Acid09

I hate it when manufacturers do that, hated it when Peugeot did it as a well with the 908.

Audi has a particular bad track record when it comes to usage of names though. I can't think of any other manufacturer that has abused the name of a legendary race car to sell a road car.

The R8 travesty continued when it came to the R8 LMS which, according to Audi, stands for "Le Mans Series", even though it was a GT3 car

So yeah, no surprise here, effective naming just isn't their thing.

The R8 LMS was dedicated to Audi winning the 2008 Le Mans Series with the Audi R10 TDI

[Simmi]

Given that in the last two years there has been real speculation around whether Audi would even continue in sportscars alongside Porsche - is it really necessary to go into a spiral of depression about what this car is called or what it looks like?

[Rodger Davies]

Touché Simmi, touché

[NelisB]

I guess as long as the rules stay relevant for them they will stay. With the new formula it's as relevant as motorsport has ever been the last few years. I guess they are here to stay for a whole lot longer.

[Flem]

I would be happy if they called it Hammerhead Eagle-i Thrust from Top Gear as long as they keep racing

[Simmi]

They might not be able to change the car's official name - but Lotterer on Instagram earlier was asking what they as a team should call the new car. e.g. Red Sonja.

[JoestForEver]

The current R18 #1 has a girl's name as well. Can't remember what it is, though

[MyNameIsNigel]

A quick comparison highlighting that the perspective of the picture of the 2014 Audi R18 e-tron quattro is misleading and that the cockpit width of the new car remains substantially similar to that of the old one:


One thing for sure, the air intake on the roof is massively larger than on the previous R18 iteration. Strangely, the front fenders and BHH also appear to be wider...