This YouTube broadcast segment provides live commentary of the 2012 24 Hours of Le Mans, focusing on Audi's R‑18 e‑tron quattro and its diesel counterpart, driver line‑ups, pit‑stop strategies, and the visual impact of Gulf sponsorship. Speakers A and B discuss how the hybrid Audi can potentially complete an extra lap per fuel stint compared to the diesel, giving it a pit‑stop advantage over a 24‑hour race. They detail the current race order, highlighting André Lotterer, Loïc Duval, Allan McNish, and others, and note pit‑lane movements such as Nick Heidfeld moving into the top six. The commentary also emphasizes the prevalence of Gulf’s iconic blue‑orange livery on LMP2, LMP1, and Aston Martin GT cars, underscoring its branding significance. Additionally, the segment describes on‑board observations of track sections—Arnage, Porsche Curves—and an incident involving the Pecom Racing LMP2 car emitting smoke, illustrating race‑day challenges. Overall, the content blends strategic analysis, driver positioning, sponsorship branding, and real‑time race incidents.
Chapters
Eighth place, as high as fourth place, and there's a lot of activity going on in the Audi garage, which is sort of the more than usual variety. Something's just been put into the cockpit there. Limited number of people working on the car. You can clean the screen, but you can't do a great deal else. If you want to work on the car, you need to get it into the garage.
Away then goes Loïc Duval. Okay, so that car has done a lap further on a tank of fuel than an e-tron quattro. What does that prove? As you see the replay of the Audi coming in and the car ahead leaving, the Nissan-powered car leaving from LMP2. If you take that one extra lap of a stint and work it out over 24 hours, the car will certainly be able to do one less pit stop, and therefore the diesels, I would say, suggest to you have an advantage because they're going to be able to do this on one pit stop fewer than the e-tron quattros.
Yes, that's right. And you would have also said that if you were Audi, you would have liked to see your newer car looking as though it would do better over the long term of the race than the diesel car. You would have expected that to happen. While we watch the GT battle go past us, here we are on board with 22 with David Brabham here as he comes up. And he's still got— he's now clear of the trouble he was having with Sébastien Bourdais. Well, Dr. Ulrich, Audi team boss, considers all his options and has a good look at the weather. David Brabham has just come down the pit lane, in fact, followed by Bertrand Baguette, who has been his chaser throughout this opening stint.
Indeed so. You're riding on board with Alan McNish now. The race order is number 1 back into the lead, André Lauterer ahead of Loïc Duval. McNish 3rd, Wurz 4th, Sarrazin 5th, Brabham was 6th, Heidfeld— sorry, not Heidfeld, Baguette was 7th. They've now pitted, so that means that Nick Heidfeld will go into the top 6 having stopped earlier on.
And indeed, he goes past our commentary position just to reinforce your point. Lot of blue and orange colored cars you may have noted in this race. That's because Gulf Middle East has a 2-car team in LMP2, and there's a rather, uh, cheerful message there on the side of the cockpit, um, for the LMP1 car currently being driven by Baguette. And of course, Aston Martin, the factory team, Their two GT cars are both also in the same famous blue, pale blue and orange Gulf colors. And that's therefore a lot of exposure for one of the most— what?
Iconic?
I was trying to avoid it, but one of the most distinguished names in motorsport sponsorship, the Gulf branding.
Very hesitant rejoin from Baguette down the pit lane. Must have stumbled a bit.
This is a great section of the track where we are on board now. Sweeping around the slightly banked corner at Indianapolis, up to the newly reshaped right-hander at Arnage, one of the slowest parts of the circuit where we will see lots of people make errors and stumble off the track in the middle of the night. And as they accelerate away now, off up towards the whole section that becomes known as the Porsche Curves. Ah, a lot of smoke and drama coming out of the bottom of the 49 LMP2 car, which is the Pecom Racing car of Luis Perez Companc, Soheil Arari, and Pierre Kaffer himself, of course, a former Audi factory driver, as there are a number of former factory Audi drivers in the field.
Sohil Aiyari, a former Pescarello driver, someone that Henri has never forgiven for the abuse he gave the car and the possibility of him chucking away a win when it was really down to Henri Pescarello to take the fight to Audi. But Aiyari had the car bouncing off curbs and tires, and Henri, maybe unfairly, has never forgiven him for that. So at the end of the lap, you're riding on board with André Lotterer, the Winning team of last year, Lotterer, Marcel Fassler, Benoit Treluyer. And this is the car, the e-tron quattro, back into the lead of the race. It's the Audi hybrid effectively.
