Le Mans, June 12, 2003
The three Audi customer have achieved good starting positions for the Le
Mans 24 Hour race start on Saturday 4 p.m. local time. During final qualifying
on Thursday evening, Audi Sport UK, Audi Sport Japan Team Goh and Team
ADT Champion Racing captured third, fifth and sixth positions on the starting
grid. Fastest Audi driver was Frank Biela, who has won the Le Mans 24 Hour
race three times in a row and could write Le Mans history: In the 80-year
history of the French long distance classic, no driver has ever managed to win
the race in four successive years.
“Third position on the grid does not mean much in a 24 hour race,” explained
Frank Biela after the qualifying. “Despite that, it is a nice feeling to start so
near to the front of the grid.” Biela was already the fastest Audi driver during
Wednesday’s first qualifying session. Thursday, Audi Sport UK’s Audi R8
dropped to sixth position, before Biela improved to third on the grid behind the
two works cars of the Bentley team in the darkness, with about one hour to go.
Biela’s team-mates at Audi Sport UK are Britain’s Perry McCarthy and former
Finnish Formula One pilot Mika Salo, who competes at Le Mans for the first
time. “It’s a great track, the Audi R8 is fun to drive, and yesterday I drove for a
full hour in darkness for the first time. This was a completely new experience
for me,” said Salo. “I’m really looking forward to the race.”
The two other Audi customer teams will start on Saturday from the third row on
the grid. Jan Magnussen secured Audi Sport Japan Team Goh the fifth
position. “I’m sure I could have gone faster, but I did not get a clear lap,”
explained the Dane who drives his first race in an R8. His team mates are
Japan’s Seiji Ara and German Marco Werner. Stefan Johansson, JJ Lehto and
Emanuele Pirro will start with Team ADT Champion Racing’s Audi R8 from
sixth position on the grid. “We have a good set-up for the race,” said Pirro, who
along with Biela, aims for his fourth consecutive Le Mans victory.
“I am very content with the performance of the Audi customer teams,” was the
positive qualifying resumee of Dr Wolfgang Ullrich, Head of Audi Sport. “It
seems that the teams found a very good setup and will be able to run at a very
fast pace in the race.” The Audi teams are counting on the well known
reliabilty of the R8, the economic fuel consumption of the Audi FSI engine and
the easy way to work on the car: while practicing, the Audi customer teams
changed the complete rear section of the car including the gearbox in less
than three and a half minutes.
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