Audi's next Le Mans stars?

Young guns. It's a handy, even snappy, phrase to plonk in front of the names Oliver Jarvis and Marco Bonanomi, two drivers racing with the Audi factory team at the Le Mans 24 Hours for the first time this weekend. It's not an entirely accurate description given that they are both beyond their mid-20s and sharing a car with a driver, in Mike Rockenfeller, who is less than 18 months older but already a winner of the French enduro.

Yet Jarvis and Bonanomi are, most definitely, part of a new guard within the German manufacturer's sportscar squad. They have been plucked from elsewhere in Audi's motorsport empire and both know they have the chance to become the next Allan McNish or Rinaldo Capello some time down the line.

Jarvis, in fact, name checks three-time Le Mans winner Capello rather than fellow countryman McNish when he talks about his aspirations on joining Audi's sportscar squad.

"I'd be happy if in 10 years time I can look back and say I've had a great sportscar career like Dindo," says the 28-year-old. "I say Dindo, because he has had such a long career with Audi, something like 18 or 19 years."

Bonanomi has similar aspirations. Sportscars is where he wants to be and he claims to have little interest in the DTM.

Oliver Jarvis © LAT

"Too much politics," he says. "I have this great opportunity with the prototype and I want to make the most of it. I'm looking forward to showing what I can do."

The new team-mates have arrived in the Joest-run prototype squad via different roads, though their routes did briefly converge at the end of 2007.

Jarvis and Bonanomi were both tried out by Audi for a place on its DTM squad. The Brit landed a drive in the German-based tin-top series, while the Italian forged a link that would stand him in good stead a couple of years later.

Jarvis has now switched tack after four years - "two strong and two bad" - with Audi in the DTM. He never made a secret of his sportscar aspirations. Think back to 2009, and you might remember stories about a chance that ultimately didn't come off to race at Le Mans with the privateer Creation LMP1 squad. The pursuit of that drive had been all about trying to get some sportscar experience under his belt.

"Getting to Le Mans is a chicken-and-egg situation: you can't get a drive without Le Mans experience," he explains. "I went after the Creation drive in the knowledge that I would have to get a little bit of money together but that it would give me that experience."

Audi subsequently sent Jarvis to the Asian Le Mans Series events in Japan in one of the Kolles squad's privateer R10 TDIs. That led to a drive with the same team and car at Le Mans the following year. And that, says Jarvis, "helped get me in the position I'm now in".

"With the reduction of cars in the DTM [for nine to eight] and the increase of the number of cars at Le Mans [from three to four], it was quite clear that there was an opportunity to move across to the sportscar side," he says. "I spoke to Jo Hausner [Audi Sport's director of engineering] about it over the winter, and it went from there.

"I don't like the fact that I have left the DTM without achieving what I thought was possible. There is a bit of unfinished business, but I am very happy with my programme this year."

Bonanomi in action during the Test Day © LAT

That programme includes an assault on the FIA GT1 World Championship at the wheel of an Audi R8 LMS ultra with the factory-blessed WRT squad. There was also a second appearance at the Nurburgring 24 Hours with WRT and couple of races in the VLN long-distance championship on the Nurburgring-Nordschleife by way of warm-up.

Bonanomi has taken a more circuitous route to a Le Mans drive with Audi. He helped develop sister marque's new Volkswagen Formula 3 engine in 2007 with RC Motorsport, with which he was racing in Formula Renault 3.5 that season. That, in turn, led to the DTM try-out.

The Italian clung onto the single-seater ladder through 2008 and 2009, before jumping off to forge what he calls "a professional career". He signed up with the Audi Sport Italia team for the Italian GT Championship, narrowly missing out on the GT3 title in 2010 and then making amends last season.

The omens are good for Bonanomi. The Audi Sport Italia squad run by Emilio Radaelli achieved championship successes in touring cars in the 1990s with a couple of Le Mans legends early in their Audi careers, Capello and Emanuele Pirro.

Bonanomi, who is also racing in the Blancpain Endurance Series this year with the Belgian WRT squad, is a Le Mans debutant this weekend, though he was part of the Audi set-up at the race last year as test and reserve driver.

"That helped me a lot," says the 27-year-old. "I was integrated in the team like a regular driver. I was on the radio, listening to the engineers and involved in all the briefings."

Bonanomi and Jarvis also feel they can learn a lot from their team-mate in the #4 Audi R18 ultra. Rockenfeller was on DTM duty on the weekends of the Spa FIA World Endurance Championship event in May, in which Audi fielded its full four-car line-up as a warm-up for the 24 Hours, and the Le Mans Test Day earlier this month.

His presence at the test would have been a big help, reckons Jarvis. "It is great having him in our car," says the Brit. "At the pre-test we weren't quite where we wanted to be, and if he'd been in the car we would have been able to validate if the set-up was not quite right or if it was down to us as drivers."

Bonanomi and Jarvis partner Le Mans winner Rockenfeller © XPB

The line-up of two newcomers and a driver focusing on DTM this year has inevitably led to the accusation that the #4 Audi is a back-up car in 2012. Jarvis and Bonanomi don't see it like that.

"It might look like we are there to pick up the pieces if the other cars have problems, but we proved at Spa that we are more than just the fourth Audi," says Jarvis.

"We managed to beat the #2 car [the R18 e-tron quattro driven by McNish, Capello and Tom Kristensen], and but for a bit of bad luck with the safety car, we would have been in a position to fight for second. We qualified second and had the pace all weekend."

The 80th running of the Le Mans 24 Hours will be another flat-out sprint as has become the norm. The likelihood is that the battle will boil down into an internecine Audi affair and the newcomers to the line-up are expecting to be part of it.

"There will be no team orders," says Bonanomi. "The fight is open between all four cars."