On Wednesday, the first practice day for the 2015 24 Hours of Le Mans, Audi Sport Team Joest completed a total of 2957km, but are currently still behind rivals Porsche.
The first free practice session yesterday afternoon saw changing weather conditions, which didn’t help teams get the data and realistic lap-times they want at this stage.
The first of three qualifying sessions took place yesterday evening from 22:00 to 24:00 (CEST), and although the weather conditions were stable and dry, various incidents cost valuable track time.
“The conditions were certainly not ideal, because we wanted to focus on comparing the different types of tires for the race,” said Head of Audi Motorsport Dr Wolfgang Ullrich. “Unfortunately, it was only possible to a limited extent. It was good that we have already found a good set-up for all three cars, and which, weather permitting, we can still refine further on Thursday evening.”
Although the three Audi R18 e-tron quattros sit in 4th (#8), 5th (#9) and 6th (#7), there is still 4 hours of qualifying to run this evening, and so all could still change, with the Audis attempting to pass the Porsches to reach the top of the timesheets.
Audi’s fastest qualifying lap time yesterday was a 3:19.866 set by Loïc Duval of the #8 car: “We weren’t surprised to see Porsche ahead of us in qualifying. Of course it’s great to fight for pole position at Le Mans, but we want to win the race. Which is what we worked for today. It was a really positive day: we made big progress between free practice and first qualifying, and are on course to have a good car for the race.”
The second qualifying session gets underway at 19:00 CEST (18:00 UK time) this evening.
