Good starting base for Audi at the seventh round of the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC): The two Audi R18 e-tron quattro cars will start the race on Sunday from the front two rows.
In qualifying, Benoît Tréluyer converted his track knowledge at Fuji into a good grid position. The Frenchman, who drove in Japan for twelve years in his career, missed pole position by just a very narrow margin at Fuji on Saturday. In the end, with his lap time of 1m 27.639s, the 35-year-old two-time Le Mans winner was lacking merely 14 hundredths of a second to Kazuki Nakajima, who managed to set the fastest time in the Toyota.
The number "1" Audi was directly trailed by Tom Kristensen in the sister car. The Le Mans record winner at the wheel of the hybrid vehicle designated as car number "2" set the third-fastest lap at 1m 28.370s.
Audi’s intermediate result remains clear on the seventh weekend of the season. The brand has achieved the fastest time in qualifying as many as five times this year. On Sunday, Audi is set on battling for the sixth victory of the season. The adjustment of the Audi R18 e-tron quattro to the 4.563-kilometer track that is within viewing distance of Mount Fuji started with testing on Wednesday. The facility, which is the home track of competitor Toyota, is characterized by unusual corners and cambers.
The seventh WEC round starts on Sunday at 11:00, local time (4:00 CEST) and can be watched live on the internet: www.audi-liveracing.com broadcasting the entire race. The TV channel Eurosport will air the last 90 minutes live.
Qualifying results
1 Wurz/Lapierre/Nakajima (Toyota) 1m 27.499s
2 Fässler/Lotterer/Tréluyer (Audi R18 e-tron quattro) 1m 27.639s
3 Kristensen/McNish (Audi R18 e-tron quattro) 1m 28.370s
4 Prost/Jani (Lola-Toyota) 1m 29.871s
5 Leventis/Watts/Kane (HPD-Honda) 1m 30.051s
6 Brabham/Chandhok/Dumbreck (HPD-Honda) 1m 30.410s
7 Belicchi/Primat (Lola-Toyota) 1m 30.682s
8 Baguette/Kraihamer/Sato (Oak Pescarolo-Honda) 1m 30.912s
9 Potolicchio/Dalziel/Sarrazin (HPD-Honda) 1m 32.367s
10 Martin/Graves/Nakano (Oreca-Nissan) 1m 32.548s
0 comments:
Post a Comment