Le Mans, June 11th, 2008
The three Audi R10 TDI prototypes are fourth, fifth and sixth on the
provisional starting grid. As it was raining during the official test day at Le
Mans and similar weather is also predicted for Thursday’s second
qualifying session, last year’s winners decided not to go out for the
fastest lap times with a special qualifying set-up. Intstead, the Audi team
worked intensively on the set-up and the aerodynamics and tested
various tyre specifications for the race. In addition, all nine Audi drivers
completed their mandatory laps in darkness. The fastest time (3m
24.105s) was set by Allan McNish in the Audi R10 TDI with start number 2
shortly after 10 p.m. Mike Rockenfeller was just 182 thousandths of a
second slower in the number 3 R10 TDI. The fastest lap at the wheel of
the number 1 R10 TDI was recorded by Marco Werner. Technically, there
were no significant problems on Wednesday. The sole incident was a
slight contact by Mike Rockenfeller with a LM P2 car in the first chicane,
which apart from a spin had no further consequences. For the second
qualifying session on Thursday evening, the three Audi R10 TDI
prototypes will already be fitted with their race engines.
Quotes after first Qualifying
Dr Wolfgang Ullrich (Head of Audi Motorsport)
"Today we were certain it would stay dry, so we focused on working out a
good set-up. Despite some red flags we completed a comprehensive
programme with all three cars and found a good set-up for all three cars.
If it is not dry tomorrow, at least we are sorted out from this side.”
Dindo Capello (Audi R10 TDI #2)
"It is impressive how fast the times have become at Le Mans. We are
happy about the work we have done. We didn’t go at all for a good lap
time in qualifying because we knew anyway that it would have been not
really possible for us to fight for pole position. We just concentrated on
setting up our car for the race and make it as easy to drive as we could.
We don’t have to forget that this is the longest race in the world. One fast
lap does not count but to be consistent in the race.”
Tom Kristensen (Audi R10 TDI #2)
"It was great to have a dry qualifying. The average speed was almost
250kph which is obviously very impressive. I know what we have to do
and that’s what we keep working at. We know what the car can do and
obviously we are just making sure that we do the 24 hours without any
issues. That is our target and we have seen before that we can beat
faster competition. So that remains our target here.”
Allan McNish (Audi R10 TDI #2)
"Tonight was the same picture we’ve had in the LMS this season where
Peugeot are faster over one lap – but I have to congratulate them with that
mighty impressive lap time. It was clear we could not fight them in
qualifying so we focussed very much on race set-up during the sessions.
In race trim we’ll be much closer to our qualifying pace. I was pleased
with the balance of our car which improved as the circuit’s grip level
increased. We got a good feeling on full tanks too. The second row of the
grid was the best we could have hoped for.”
Lucas Luhr (Audi R10 TDI #3)
"Now it’s getting really exciting. The whole team has worked so hard
during the last months and now the race is coming closer and closer. As
we saw today we are facing very strong competitors, but this we already
knew before. We focused on our set-up for the race and are looking good
so far. Everything else we will see – latest on Sunday at 3 p.m.”
Alexandre Prémat (Audi R10 TDI #3)
"I am very happy about today. Unfortunately the gap to our competitors is
quite big at the moment but this we will try to sort out during the race. I feel
very confident in the Audi R10 TDI during daylight and also in the night.
Everything with the team, the engineers, the mechanics as well as with
Mike (Rockenfeller) and Lucas (Luhr) is going on very well which makes
me optimistic for the challenges to come.”
Mike Rockenfeller (Audi R10 TDI #3)
"It’s nice that we could finally get into the car since we are already here at
Le Mans since Monday. It’s always something special when you drive out
of the pits in the night. I’m quite happy with the elements we worked out
today. I think we are well sorted out for the race day – and that’s what it
was all about today.”
Frank Biela (Audi R10 TDI #1)
"We knew that Peugeot would be quicker. That’s why we’ve focused on
the race set-up right from the beginning which is what we did
consequently. The car felt good. Marco (Werner) has made some more
changes on the car. I hope it was a step in the right direction.”
Emanuele Pirro (Audi R10 TDI #1)
"We have done some work which we haven’t been able to do in the
pre-test owing to the bad weather. It was quite a good day. The car’s
set-up has been sorted out to 80 per cent already. We only need to look at
a few details. I’m reasonably happy.”
Marco Werner (Audi R10 TDI #1)
"I didn’t do that many laps. Actually, I only clocked up miles in the dark
after having done my mandatory laps previously. However, red flags
prevented me from doing consistent times although the sector times
have been quite okay. At the end, we’ve tried something that was rather
negative. I flat-spotted one tyre. Therafter, we wanted to try something
again, but then there had been another red flag. So we can’t draw that
many conclusions.”
Ralf Jüttner (Technical Director Audi Sport Team Joest)"
We ran through our programme. The weather was good. We had no
problems. So everything is fine. The competition is as fast as we
expected and feared. They did exactly the times which we expected after
the test day. The second part of qualifying showed how it might look like
in the race: In race conditions the times were very close together. We did,
as usual, not care about qualifying, did only very limited runs with new
tyres and always ran with a lot of fuel. As usual we concentrated on the
race set-up. And I think we are well sorted out.”
Results Qualifying 1
1 Lamy/Sarrazin/Wurz (Peugeot 908) 3m 18.513s
2 Montagny/Zonta/Klien (Peugeot 908) 3m 18.682s
3 Gené/Minassian/Villeneuve (Peugeot 908) 3m 20.451s
4 Capello/Kristensen/McNish (Audi R10 TDI) 3m 24.105s
5 Luhr/Prémat/Rockenfeller (Audi R10 TDI) 3m 24.287s
6 Biela/Pirro/Werner (Audi R10 TDI) 3m 27.580s
7 Collard/Boullion/Dumas (Pescarolo-Judd) 3m 28.533s
8 Ito/Tachikawa/Kataoka (Dome-Judd) 3m 29.352s
9 Ayari/Duval/Groppi (Courage-Oreca-Judd) 3m 30.490s
10 Primat/Tinseau/Treluyer (Pescarolo-Judd) 3m 30.618s
... Le Mans weather forecast >>>
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