Audi will use just one energy recovery system for the 2014 FIA World Endurance Championship season. World Championship-winning Audi Sport Team Joest has for the time being decided to sideline the ERS-H system installed on the R18 e-tron quattro at some pre-season tests, this being the system developed to capture and convert thermal energy from the exhausts into electric energy.
Head of Audi Motorsport, Dr Wolfgang Ullrich, told the Austin American-Statesman newspaper this week that the team will instead rely solely on its flywheel-based kinetic energy recovery system to provide additional power to the front axle.
“We did quite some work on it,” said Dr Ullrich, “but it didn’t yield the results we expected on a real race track. The risk to use it, without the benefit we wanted to have, plus the question mark of reliability, [means] we didn’t want to go that route.”
After almost two weeks in the United States, testing at both Sebring in Florida alongside the Porsche 919 Hybrid LMP1, and at Circuit of The Americas in Texas, Audi Sport Team Joest now turns its attention towards its official unveiling at Le Mans on 25th March and The Prologue at Circuit Paul Ricard on 28/29th March.
Fiona Miller
