Rinaldo Capello (Infineon Audi R8 #2)
“While watching Tom fighting for the victory today I remembered the Mosport
race two years ago when the battle ended in a photo finish – on that
occasion we won, today we didn’t. We saw a fantastic race with the lead
constantly changing. We ‘only’ finished second, but we should not forget
this is still a good result.”
Tom Kristensen (Infineon Audi R8 #2)
“The winner today is Washington DC for organising such a great event for
the fans and the drivers. On my pitstop, I decided to stay on old tyres, but
then I collected a lot of pick-up, lost some tyre pressure on the slow laps
and so couldn’t push as hard as I had hoped to. When Jan was behind me,
I could almost see his eyes in my rear mirror. I didn’t want to take any risk
with all the walls around and let him pass.”
Frank Biela (Infineon Audi R8 #1)
“Of course it’s a little bit disappointing that we didn’t win this race. But the
Panoz guys simply did a great job this weekend and clearly deserve this
victory. The third place doesn’t help us a lot concerning the championship
but makes the second half of the season a lot more interesting. We’ve got
five more races to come and today was a good example of what we will see
during the coming months.”
Emanuele Pirro (Infineon Audi R8 #1)
“That was a very tough race and also very unfortunate for us. During a safety
car period they opened the pit-lane immediately after I passed the entry and
so we could only stop one lap later. We’ve lost a lot of time because of that.
But that’s racing and we will be back next time for sure.”
Johnny Herbert (ADT Champion Audi R8 #38)
“It turned into a disappointing weekend after I flat-spotted the tyres in
qualifying yesterday. That meant we needed to use a new set of tyres and
start the race from the back. Stefan did a good job fighting to the front but
after I took over I lost power due to a technical problem and surrendered
fourth place - I just wanted to reach the finish.”
Stefan Johansson (ADT Champion Audi R8 #38)
“It wasn’t a good day for us - we had hoped for and expected a lot more from
this race. Early in the race I spun because the brakes were marginal and
later I had a contact with Dindo which again caused a spin. I was obviously
determined not to lose a lap to him while Dindo wanted to get past quickly. It
was a racing incident and I’m really sorry he was given a stop-go penalty.”
Ralf Jüttner, Technical Director Team Audi Sport North America
“We expected a tight race on this track and that’s what happened. You can
put the stop-go penalty for Dindo and Tom up for debate. In addition, the
race control opened the pit-lane too late so the leading Panoz and
Emanuele had to drive by and were behind the safety car again. All in all,
this race varied although for us it ended unfortunately.”
Dr Wolfgang Ullrich, Head of Audi Sport
“It was an extremely exciting race, which for us did not end positively this
time. 15 minutes before the end, Tom was beside the Panoz, but it was not
possible for him to overtake. They drove a faultless race and we showed
some weaknesses and therefore there is only one well-deserved winner,
which is Panoz. We lost too much time when Dindo was behind the
Champion Audi. When he tried to pass he pushed too much which ended in
a spin for both cars, for which we got a stop-go penalty. Like that you cannot
win a race against Panoz.”
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