Lime Rock - July 6, 2007
Allan McNish in pole position in LM P1 class
Team Audi Sport North America’s pair of Audi R10 TDI sports cars will
start Saturday’s sixth round of the American Le Mans Series at Lime Rock
(US state of Connecticut) as the fastest cars of the LM P1 category from
the fourth row of the grid. Allan McNish (Scotland) secured the LM P1 pole
position for Audi.
Qualifying cancelled due to rain
Following strong rainfall, Friday’s qualifying session was cancelled and
the starting grid based on the results of the morning practice – a session
Team Audi Sport North America had used for working on the set-up of the
two cars. The starting grid thus does not reflect entirely the true scenario.
Starting grid based on free practice results
The Audi drivers, however, are facing a difficult task in Saturday’s race
(start at 3:05 p.m. local time, 21:05 p.m. in Germany). The
2.462-kilometers (1.530-miles) track, the shortest on the American Le
Mans Series’ schedule, is extremely bumpy and offers poor grip. The LM
P1 cars, due to the higher weight stipulated by the regulations, have more
to fight with this than the 150-kilograms lighter prototypes from the LM P2
category.
Despite that, Audi captured the overall win at Lime Rock with the
legendary R8 in the previous three years. However, the experience gained
with the most successful Le Mans Prototype of all time can not really be
transfered to the Audi R10 TDI which had its first-ever laps at Lime Rock
in testing on Tuesday. With Team Audi Sport North America starting
almost from scratch on this track, Friday’s changing weather conditions
made the task even more difficult.
Quotes after practice
Dr Wolfgang Ullrich (Head of Audi Motorsport)
"This has been a day full of work. Unfortunately we did not find a set-up
which pleased the drivers in the first practice session which affected the
lap-times. For the second practice we worked out a programme which we
could almost complete despite the rain. Because the qualifying was
cancelled we will start the race from an unpleasent position. But I’m
convinced that we will have two cars tomorrow that will perform better
than in the first practice.”
Dindo Capello (Audi R10 TDI #1)
"It’s a shame we didn’t get the opportunity to improve our morning
practice session position. We were working through car set-up and so
were not concentrating on ‘qualifying’ lap times. But we have to live with
this now. The LM P2 cars have a much faster pace here in the dry.
Despite rain might be better for uns, I want teh race to be dry. Rain would
be a nightmare on this track. Our main goal is to win the LM P1 class in
order to defend our championship lead. The rest we’ll see.”
Allan McNish (Audi R10 TDI #1)
"It was a shame qualifying was cancelled due to intense rain. It’s
apparent that the circuit’s characteristics do not favour the R10 TDI. We
were working through a programme to get the best set up for this track.
Although we’ll have a well-balanced car for the race, I don’t believe we’d
have had a car that could have challenged for a top grid position even in
dry conditions. For the race I hope wen can be as competitive as we can
be.”
Emanuele Pirro (Audi R10 TDI #2)
"Personally I had not much driving time today. Our main goal was to make
the car drivable allowing us to come good through the race. The track is
very very bumpy. This makes it especially difficult for the heavier LM P1
cars. It looks like we’ve found a good set-up which should work in
tomorrow’s race. However, it will be difficult to fight for the overall victory.”
Marco Werner (Audi R10 TDI #2)
"We were not able to complete our programme exactly to our liking
because the weather did not play into our hands. We made a change in
the second practice session which felt good, but due to the rain we could
not translate it into a lap-time. The risk to destroy the car is just too big on
this track. So, a little question mark has been left for tomorrow. I hope the
warm-up will be dry.”
Dave Maraj (Team Director Audi Sport North America)
"This has been an unusual day. The qualifying was cancelled, and
unfortunately the results of the practice session counted for the grid we
struggled most. We would have been closer to the top if it would have
been dry in the afternoon. Now we start quite far back and have to make
the best out of it.”
The starting grid at Lime Rock
1 Dumas/Bernhard (Porsche) 44.659s
2 Dyson/Smith (Porsche) 45.176s
3 Brabham/Johansson/Dayton (Acura/Honda) 45.799s
4 Herta/Franchitti (Acura/Honda) 45.829s
5 Maassen/Briscoe (Porsche) 45.846s
6 Fernandez/Diaz (Acura/Honda) 46.247s
7 Capello/McNish (Audi R10 TDI) 46.419s (1st in LM P1)
8 Pirro/Werner (Audi R10 TDI) 46.644s (2nd in LM P1)
9 Wallace/Leitzinger (Porsche) 46.861s
10 Bach/Devlin (Lola-Mazda) 47.882s
|