Perhaps it should come as little surprise that Benoit Treluyer should name the Audi R18 e-tron Quattro as his favourite car, given he won the Le Mans 24 Hours twice in cars bearing that name. But his pick from what might best be described as a family of LMP1 cars, with each year’s variant bearing differences to varied degrees of significance, is the 2015 iteration he raced to victory in high-downforce trim at that year’s Silverstone World Endurance Championship season-opener. “That car was just crazy to drive,” says the Frenchman, who shared with Andre Lotterer and Marcel Fassler .
“Silverstone is one of my best memories in terms of sensation driving; going to Becketts with car flat everywhere was amazing. “We had to release the throttle, we couldn't stay flat on the entry of Becketts just because it was bouncing, and the hybrid couldn't accept this bouncing with oscillation. But the car could have gone much quicker.
As well in Spa, I think, we had the low [drag] package and I still remember I was overtaking outside in some corners.” Audi’s response to being beaten by Toyota to the 2014 WEC drivers’ and manufacturers’ title was to revamp its V6 turbodiesel racer, that had itself been an all-new design that year, around the same monocoque. It went up a megajoule class on hybrid power, from 2MJ to deploying 4MJ per lap, boasted a new single energy-retrieval system (the 2014 edition had been the first not to run two front Motor Generator Units) and had all ne.