Audi has unveiled its FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) and Le Mans 24 Hours livery for the 2016 season.
The R18 has largely been designed from scratch according to Audi, with "a more radical aerodynamics concept" a new battery-driven hybrid drive system and an improved V6 TDI engine.
The various innovations have helped Audi deliver its best ever fuel efficiency – 10 per cent less than its previous model – whilst creating even more power – more than 1,000hp.
"The result is a race car that manages energy even more effectively than before," explained head of Audi Motorsport Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich. "This type of motorsport continues to set an example for automotive engineering. For Audi, production relevance has been a core topic of all racing programs for 35 years."
The R18 moves from four to six megajoules, retrieving energy from the front-axle only. The change coincides with a switch from flywheel to lithium-ion batteries – a technology Porsche used to great effect last season.
The team will run an unchanged driver line-up of Andre Lotterer, Benoit Treluyer and Marcel Fassler with the second entry driven by Loci Duval, Lucas di Grassi and Oliver Jarvis.
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