Audi Confirms Le Mans Lineup for New R18

An old saying goes somewhat like this: If it works, why change it? And this must have surely been on the mind of Audi's Motorsport boss Wolfgang Ullrich, who confirmed earlier today that all 9 drivers that managed to bring the German carmaker a historical 1-2-3 finish in the 2010 Le Mans 24-Hour Race will be retained for the 2011 Le Mans campaign. “Over the last few years we’ve had a very strong and harmonious driver line-up at Le Mans,” said Ullrich in a statement for the press. “Any one of our three cars could have won, which explains why it was our aim to compete with an unchanged driver squad at Le Mans in 2011.” In an attempt to maintain their dominance in the Le Mans Series, Audi will debut their new R18 prototype this season, and the early decision to set up the teams for 2011 will help the German maker focus solely on the development of the new racer from now on. “I’m delighted that we achieved this. Now we can concentrate solely on the development of the Audi R18 and need not integrate any new drivers into the team, which would have been associated with additional work and risks. The schedule to Le Mans is tight enough as it is,” added the Audi boss. Timo Bernhard (Germany), Romain Dumas (France) and Mike Rockenfeller (Germany), the crew that won last year's Le Mans 24-Hour classic, will drive the #1 Audi R18, while Audi's legendary trio Tom Kristensen (Denmark), Dindo Capello (Italy) and Allan McNish (Scotland) will settle for the second R18. Finally, the third R18 will feature Marcel Fässler (Switzerland), André Lotterer (Germany) and Benoît Treluyer (France), who finished last year's Le Mans 24-Hour race in 2nd place. Besides the 3 lineups for the Le Mans classic, here are the complete lineups announced by Audi for their entire 2011 programme, including the International Le Mans Cup. Sebring