Though they were unable to match the single lap pace of the Porsches Audi Motorsport are confident that they can fight for victory in the 6 Hours of Silverstone.
“We didn’t achieve the pole position today,” said Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich, the head of Audi Motorsport. “But we knew that our strength is not manifested by a fast lap but by consistency in the race. Therefore, the grid positions are a good base for Sunday.”
The better of the two R18 e-tron Quattro in the FIA World Endurance Championship field will start the first race of the season from third position thanks to the combined efforts of Lucas di Grassi and Oliver Jarvis. The average time of each of their fastest laps (1.40.352) – how the WEC grid order is decided this year – was just 0.012 slower than that of Neel Jani and Romain Dumas in the #18 Porsche.
“I’m happy with our grid position even though in the end only twelve hundredths of a second were lacking for the first row,” said Lucas di Grassi, who will start the #8 car in the race. “We know that our competitors are in a better position in qualifying, but I’m confident that we’ll be able to attack across the race distance and are going to deliver a thrilling race to the fans.”
The #7 Audi will start the race directly behind their teammates from fifth. Andre Lotterer described the session, which he shared with Marcel Fassler, as “fair to middling” though he admitted he was unable to get the best out of the car early in the session. He tried –and succeeded – to improve after getting back in the car in the closing minutes taking his best personal time down to 1:40.201 and the car’s average time to 1:41.153.
The 6 Hours of Silverstone is scheduled to start at noon on Sunday. www.theCheckeredFlag.co.uk will have Live Blog coverage of the race from the circuit.
