Allan McNish, in the number 2 Audi R10 TDI, claimed a provisional front row start position for the 75th Le Mans 24 Hours in the opening official qualifying session this Wednesday. This is anchored on the fact that McNish was denied the fastest time in the dying seconds of the race.
Scotsman McNish, aiming for provisional pole in his diesel-powered Audi R10 TDI until French Stephane Sarrazin of Peugeot, snatched the fastest time in the opening time trials for the 54-car field. McNish's 3 minutes and 26.916 secs, an average speed of 147.34mph around the 8.47-mile circuit composed of closed public roads, was 0.572 seconds slower than the Sarrazin. The fastest ever Le Mans lap was achieved on soft race tyres regardless of the hard conditions and the darkness. The performance could be likened to the superiority of the .
"Qualifying was difficult because of the red flag stoppages and weather, so it all came down to the last ten minutes or so when times began to fall after track conditions allowed us to bolt on 'slick' dry weather tyres," reflected McNish. He added, "I had two reasonable laps but encountered some traffic in the last chicane on my second 'hot' lap which was frustrating having worked hard for over eight miles only to see time slipping away in the last tenth of a mile. However, I don't believe it cost me over half a second which is how much faster the Peugeot went right at the very end."
On that day, the Audi Sport Team Joest focused on qualifying all nine drivers for the race. The Audi squad used the few dry laps and also the wet track to test different tyre compounds, suspension set-ups and aerodynamic configurations for the race. All three Audi R10 TDI prototypes ran without any technical difficulty.
McNish, the 37-year-old 1998 Le Mans winner, shares his V12 diesel-engined Audi with regular American Le Mans Series team-mate Dindo Capello and Tom Kristensen. Kristensen passed fit earlier this week to race at Le Mans after an accident in a German Touring Car Masters (DTM) race in April.
The first qualifying session for the race has given a hint what spectators of what is to come this weekend the 75th running of the French endurance classic. The event will sport a breath-taking fight between Audi and Peugeot sportscars.
After the first qualifying, Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich, the head of Audi Motorsport said, "It was a very unusual qualifying today because I think it never happened before that the fastest lap times were set during the last minutes. But that was only due to the fact that during the usual time-window for fast lap times there was either a red flag out or the track was wet. We have done some good work and qualified all our drivers in the night. I am satisfied with the times we have achieved today."
Ralf JÃ?ttner, the technical director of Audi Sport Team Joest, added, "With the changing track conditions and the many red flags we experienced some kind of strange qualifying today. The circumstances did not allow us to stick to our programme, because we always had to react to the conditions. At the end it was a question of being out on slicks at the very right time."
McNish team mate, Tom Kristensen, is one of the 'in high spirits' racers in Audi. He said, "It is great to be back at Le Mans and to be here with my Audi team members and co-drivers. It has been a long wait for me and I'm really excited to be back behind the wheel of the R10 TDI."
