Audi tells Penske he can’t run their cars at LeMans

VW and Audi got enough bad press about their diesel passenger cars. No way their diesel race cars will ever see the light of day again.

Roger Penske says he asked Audi about running its LMP1 cars on a privateer basis at the Le Mans 24 Hours this year – but the German manufacturer said no.

“I talked about if we could get a privateer [effort] with some of those cars," Penske told Motorsport.com. “But under the current situation with Audi, all the things they’re going through, they just said they’ve got enough eyeballs on them, they don’t need to be showing up at Le Mans.

“I’d love to run at Le Mans, but if I did I’d love to run at the front."

Audi’s then-motorsport chief Dr Wolfgang Ullrich told Motorsport.com last year: “You will not see any ‘historic’ Audis in the WEC" – and confirmed that the 2017 Audi was never built beyond a 1:8 model.