Motorsport WI: Audi never enters Le Mans

[President Al Bundy]

How much might motorsports have changed, if Audi decided against entering sport prototypes? Might they have turned up in Formula One, or would they have fully commited themselves to Touring Car racing? And what about Le Mans itself? Could manufacturers have returned much faster (With no Audi dominance), or might Le Mans have been just a better privatier series for years? Anyway, with no Audi (And subsequently no Bentley), we might have seen these different Le Mans winners:

2000: Pescarolo Sport (Courage C52): Olivier Grouillard/Sebastien Bourdais/Emmanuel Clerico
2001: Oreca (Chrysler LMP): Olivier Beretta/Karl Wendlinger/Pedro Lamy
2002: Oreca (Dallara SP1 (It's the same as the Chrysler LMP)): Olivier Beretta/Erik Comas/Pedro Lamy
2003: JML Team Panoz (Panoz LMP1 Evo): Olivier Beretta/Gunnar Jeanette/Max Papis
2004: Pescarolo Sport (Pescarolo C60): Soheil Ayari/Erik Comas/Benoit Treluyer
2005: Pescarolo Sport (Pescarolo C60 Hybrid): Emmanuel Collard/Jean-Christophe Boullion/Erik Comas
2006: Pescarolo Sport (Pescarolo C60 Hybrid): Sebastien Loeb/Eric Helary/Franck Montagny
2007: Peugeot Sport (Peugeot 908): Stephane Sarrazin/Pedro Lamy/Sebastien Bourdais
2008: Peugeot Sport (Peugeot 908): Nicolas Minassin/Marc Gene/Jacques Villeneuve

In OTL 2009, Peugeot won anyway.

Of course, this list is very theoretical.

 

[Custard Cream Monster]

That's assuming Pug even bother, as they wouldn't have any factory competition. Sportscar racing isn't my speciality, but I wouldn't be surprised if it tended to die off a fair bit if Audi didn't turn up, they brought a fan base.

If VWAG went in to F1, that would be an interesting situation, admittedly they would probably badge the team as VW. They were quite peeved with touring cars with the ban on 4WD in Supertouring, so if they stayed in they might switch brand.

Good to see another motorsport fan, a while ago I thought about a somewhat more drastic motorsport thing to do as a TL. It would probably wind up being a long one, and one that would really start a 10 or 15 years after the PoD, and would result in the road car landscape being different ...