Audi has been fully concentrating on race preparations in round eight of the FIA World Endurance Championship. In qualifying, the team chose not to use several sets of tires. The high temperatures at the Bahrain 6 Hours make maximum demands on both ‘man and material.’
Like the other teams in the LMP1 category, Audi may use eight sets of tires per race car for qualifying and the race. “We decided to save as many unused tires as possible for the race,” says Dieter Gass, Deputy Head of Audi Motorsport. “That’s why each of our two driver teams competed in qualifying with only one set of tires. The day of the race is the decisive one for us.”
Marcel Fässler (CH) on his lap achieved the best time of the Audi drivers. Together with his teammate André Lotterer (D), the Swiss took third place on the grid. “My lap was okay, only in the last turn I didn’t catch the racing line,” said Lotterer. “In position three, we’re in the place we expected to be,” Marcel Fässler added. The sister car qualified fourth, trailing the combined time of car number ‘7’ by only 0.104 seconds. Loïc Duval (F) and Oliver Jarvis (GB) took turns at the wheel of the number ‘8’ Audi R18 e-tron quattro. “The lap wasn’t perfect, but for us it’s about the race,” said Jarvis. “The gap between us and our sister car is very small. I’m looking forward to a thrilling race,” commented Loïc Duval.
Chris Reinke, Head of LMP at Audi Sport, positively summed up the final qualifying session: “We executed all our steps as planned. While our direct competitors used several new sets of tires, we made do with just one set per car. That’s good with respect to the six hours of racing. The gap between our two driver teams is minimal, which underscores our solid team performance.”
