Audi beats best time from last year
Audi R18 e-tron quattro on first three positions at Le MansFirst qualifying ended early after incidentBest time of the day for Frenchman Loc Duval
After a shortened first day of practice for the anniversary event of the Le Mans 24 Hours (start on Saturday at 1500 CEST) all three Audi R18 e-tron quattro cars are at the front of the field. The Frenchman Loc Duval managed to beat the best time from last year by almost 1.5 seconds.The hybrid race cars with the four rings, which have been undefeated in the current season so far, dominated on the 13.629-kilometer track in Western France on Wednesday right from the beginning. In free practice and in qualifying, Audi maintained the top three positions. The fastest in both qualifying sessions was the number 2 Audi R18 e-tron quattro driven by Loc Duval (France), Tom Kristensen (Denmark) and Allan McNish (Scotland). The best time of the day of 3m 22.349s was achieved by Loc Duval shortly after qualifying started at 22:00.The Spaniard Marc Gen, who is sharing the number 3 Audi R18 e-tron quattro with Lucas di Grassi (Brazil) and Oliver Jarvis (Great Britain), achieved the second-fastest time of the day (3m 24.341s). Trailing them in third place were last years winners and current World Endurance Champions Marcel Fssler (Switzerland), Andr Lotterer (Germany) and Benot Trluyer (France). The fastest lap of car number 1 was driven by Andr Lotterer in 3m 25.474s.But none of the three Audi squads was mainly focused on the chase for fast lap times on Wednesday. Following the predominantly rainy pre-test on Sunday before last, Audi Sport Team Joest continued the test program that had been started then, focusing on tire tests and a perfect race set-up of the three R18 e-tron quattro cars. In addition, all drivers tried to do the mandatory laps at night. All, except for Marcel Fssler, who was stopped twice by red flags, managed this. Both the free practice and the first qualifying sessions were stopped early after incidents in which the guard rails of the race track were damagedqualifying even ended as early as after 65 minutes of the originally scheduled two hours. Still, we basically completed our work tonight as planned, said Loc Duval, who celebrated his 31st birthday last week. Our plan was to reel off a real qualifying lap on a dry track as wellyou never know what the weather will be like tomorrow. I caught a lap without traffic. But our car isnt perfect yet simply because the track conditions arent so conclusive yet. At this point in time, the outcome after the final qualifying session on Thursday is still completely open.Its nice that the race week has finally begun for good, said Head of Audi Motorsport Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich. The weather conditions were better today than expected so that we were able to work well. Unfortunately, there were two longer interruptions because the track had to be repaired after accidents. Thats why were hoping to be able to make optimum use of tomorrow for checking off the final details weve got on our action list.From 19:00 to 21:00 and from 22:00 to 24:00 two further qualifying sessions are scheduled at which the the final grid positions will be awarded. To date, Audi has started from the pole position seven times at the Le Mans 24 Hours, which celebrates its 90th anniversary this year, and has won the worlds most important endurance race eleven times at 14 runs.
1. P1 Kristensen/McNish/Duval Audi 3m22.349s2. P1 di Grassi/Gene/Jarvis Audi 3m24.341s +1.992s3. P1 Lotterer/Treluyer/Fassler Audi 3m25.474s +3.125s4. P1 Wurz/Lapierre/Nakajima Toyota 3m26.676s +4.327s5. P1 Prost/Jani/Heidfeld Rebellion Lola-Toyota 3m30.423s +8.074s6. P1 Davidson/Buemi/Sarrazin Toyota 3m30.841s +8.492s7. P1 Belicchi/Beche/Cheng Rebellion Lola-Toyota 3m32.167s +9.818s8. P1 Kane/Watts/Leventis Strakka HPD 3m36.547s +14.198s9. P2 Rusinov/M.Martin/Conway Delta-ADR ORECA-Nissan 3m39.535s +17.186s10. P2 Gachnang/Mailleux/Lombard Morand Morgan-Judd 3m40.741s +18.392s11. P2 Pla/Heinemeier Hansson/Brundle OAK Morgan-Nissan 3m40.780s +18.431s12. P2 Graves/Nakano/Hamilton Delta-ADR ORECA-Nissan 3m40.925s +18.576s13. P2 Baguette/Gonzalez/Plowman OAK Morgan-Nissan 3m42.387s +20.038s14. P2 Perez Companc/Minassian/Kaffer Pecom ORECA-Nissan 3m43.420s +21.071s15. P2 Thiriet/Badey/M.Martin TDS ORECA-Nissan 3m43.494s +21.145s16. P2 Panciatici/Ragues/Gommendy Signatech ORECA-Nissan 3m43.835s +21.486s17. P2 Hartley/Patterson/Chandhok Murphy ORECA-Nissan 3m44.538s +22.189s18. P2 Dolan/Turvey/Luhr Jota Zytek-Nissan 3m44.835s +22.486s19. P2 Frey/Niederhauser/Bleekemolen Race Perf' ORECA-Judd 3m45.244s +22.895s20. P2 Imperatori/Tung/Howson KCMG Morgan-Nissan 3m45.500s +23.151s21. P2 Weeda/Rossiter/Bouchut Lotus-Praga 3m47.920s +25.571s22. P2 Nicolet/Merlin/Mondolot OAK Morgan-Nissan 3m48.196s +25.847s23. P2 Tucker/Franchitti/Briscoe Level 5 HPD 3m48.597s +26.248s24. P2 Giroix/Haezebrouck/Ihara Gulf Lola-Nissan 3m49.096s +26.747s25. P2 Mardenborough/Ordonez/Krumm Greaves Zytek-Nissan 3m49.421s +27.072s26. P2 Mowlem/Burgess/Hirschi HVM Status Lola-Judd 3m49.805s +27.456s27. GTP Bell/Makowiecki/Senna Aston Martin 3m55.658s +33.309s28. GTP Bruni/Fisichella/Malucelli AF Corse Ferrari 3m55.909s +33.560s29. GTP Dumbreck/Mucke/Turner Aston Martin 3m56.004s +33.655s30. GTP Auberlen/Dalla Lana/Lamy Aston Martin 3m56.336s +33.987s31. GTP Lieb/Lietz/Dumas Manthey Porsche 3m56.457s +34.108s32. GTP Beretta/Kobayashi/Vilander AF Corse Ferrari 3m56.471s +34.122s33. GTP Bergmeister/Pilet/Bernhard Manthey Porsche 3m56.573s +34.224s34. P2 Porta/Raffin/Brandela DKR Lola-Judd 3m56.905s +34.556s35. P2 Downs/Dagoneau/Younessi Boutsen ORECA-Nissan 3m57.139s +34.790s36. GTA Nygaard/Poulsen/Simonsen Aston Martin 3m58.661s +36.312s37. GTA Ried/Roda/Ruberti Proton Porsche 3m59.246s +36.897s38. GTP Magnussen/Garcia/Taylor Corvette 3m59.526s +37.177s39. GTP Westbrook/Gavin/Milner Corvette 3m59.860s +37.511s40. GTA Milesi/Gibon/Henzler Imsa Porsche 4m00.503s +38.154s41. GTA Hall/Goethe/Campbell-Walter Aston Martin 4m01.035s +38.686s42. GTA Narac/Bourret/Vernay Imsa Porsche 4m01.713s +39.364s43. GTA Gerber/Griffin/Cioci AF Ferrari 4m02.815s +40.466s44. GTP Dalziel/Farnbacher/Goossens SRT Viper 4m03.127s +40.778s45. GTA Dempsey/Foster/Long Dempsey Porsche 4m03.378s +41.029s46. GTP Bomarito/Kendall/Wittmer SRT Viper 4m03.461s +41.112s47. GTA Perazzini/Case/O'Young AF Corse Ferrari 4m03.966s +41.617s48. GTA MacNeil//Rodrigues/Dumas Larbre Corvette 4m04.512s +42.163s49. GTA Bornhauser/Canal/Taylor Larbre Corvette 4m04.873s +43.524s50. GTA Potolicchio/Aguas/Bright 8star Ferrari 4m07.625s +45.276s51. GTA Mallegol/Bachelier/Blank AF Ferrari 4m09.064s +46.715s52. GTP Collard/Perrodo/Crubile Prospeed Porsche 4m11.719s +49.370s53. P2 Gibon/Milesi/Henzler Lotus-Praga54. P2 Kimber-Smith/Rossi/Lux Greaves Zytek-Nissan55. GTA Krohn/Jonsson/Mediani Krohn Ferrari56. GTP Bertolini/Al Faisal/Al Qubaisi JMW Ferrari
