Audi top in qualifying for home round
- Front row for Audi in FIA WEC at the Nürburgring
- Marcel Fässler/André Lotterer on pole position
- Lucas di Grassi/Oliver Jarvis complete front row
Impressive performance in qualifying in the Eifel: Marcel Fässler (CH) and André Lotterer (D) in the Audi R18 clinched grid position one in round four of the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC). With a gap of only 26 hundredths of a second Lucas di Grassi (BR) and Oliver Jarvis (GB) in the sister car number 8 directly trailed them.
As in the season opener at Silverstone Audi, now in its home round, captured the front row again with its two hybrid sports cars. “In spite of difficult conditions everything went perfectly today. Both driver teams were fast and used the right tactics,” Head of Audi Motorsport Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich praised the squads. Fässler and Lotterer in car number 7 achieved a joint best time of 1m 39.444s. “I had no traffic and managed a sensational lap,” said Lotterer who achieved the second-fastest single time in the field. “Staying out for three laps was the right choice because we became faster and faster.” Marcel Fässler added: “We were instantly very fast today. A thank you goes to our new engineer Erik Schuivens. It’s a shame that our teammate Benoît Tréluyer can’t be with us today. We’re in close contact with him and he’s sharing the thrill with us.”
Lucas di Grassi set the best single time and was particularly pleased with the way his Audi R18 was running. “The car’s handling was simply superb today. That was fun,” reported the Brazilian. His teammate Oliver Jarvis had to go out once more. The race directors had cancelled his first lap for having exceeded the track limits. “That’s why I made another attempt at the end of the session,” said the Briton. But I’m happy about positions one and two for Audi. Things couldn’t have gone any better for the squad.”
Stefan Dreyer was very pleased on making his debut as Project Leader LMP as well. “This performance is impressive. After a lot of hard work, the entire team deserves this success. We got everything right today. Obviously, that’s our goal for Sunday as well. However, a 6-hour race is an altogether different challenge. Still, I’m optimistic.”
The race starts on Sunday, July 24, at 13:00. Eurosport will be airing full-length coverage of the 6 Hours of Nürburgring live and free of charge on its website: http://video.eurosport.de/wec/video-live.shtml
Qualifying results
1 Fässler/Lotterer (Audi R18) 1m 39.444s
2 Di Grassi/Duval/Jarvis (Audi R18) 1m 39.710s
3 Bernhard/Hartley/Webber (Porsche) 1m 39.861s
4 Dumas/Jani/Lieb (Porsche) 1m 39.893s
5 Conway/Kobayashi/Sarrazin (Toyota) 1m 40.639s
6 Buemi/Davidson/Nakajima (Toyota) 1m 40.748s
7 Imperatori/Kraihamer/Tuscher (Rebellion) 1m 46.081s
8 Kaffer/Trummer/Webb (CLM-AER) 1m 46.907s
9 Beche/Heidfeld/Prost (Rebellion) 1m 47.026s
10 Brundle/Rast/Rusinov (Oreca-Nissan) 1m 48.984s