Herbert set the team's fastest time of the Mosport weekend in the closing minutes
of official qualifying to put the ADT/Champion Audi R8 third on the starting grid
for Sunday's two-hour, 45-minute American Le Mans Series race. Frank Biela put
Joest Racing's Audi R8 on Pole with a new track record, while his team-mate Rinaldo
Capello set the second-fastest time, putting Audi's 1-2-3 on the starting grid.
Johnny Herbert: "It took a long time for the tires to come up to temperature,
I did ten laps before I felt like I had the grip to try and put in a fast time.
We have been fighting a lack of front grip all day, so it is easy to overdrive
the car, so I just worked up to the fast time slowly. It is nice to be in front
of the Cadillacs especially after they did two days of testing here."
Stefan Johansson: "Johnny did a good job to put the car in the second
row. We have been struggling in the high and medium speed corners, at Mosport
that really affects lap times. I hope that Johnny’s time means that we are
going in the right direction because we have been working on the aerodynamic grip.
We have some changes to try in the warm-up to make the car even better for the
race."
Dr Wolfgang Ullrich, Head of Audi Sport: "As far as Johnny Herbert
is concerned, we were joking whether he goes for a long run. The effort was worth
it - only on lap 13 Johnny pushed himself to position three."
Top Times from Mosport Qualifying:
1 - Pirro/Biela (Infineon Audi R8) 1m 07.169s
2 - Capello/Kristensen (Infineon Audi R8) 1m 07.720s
3 - Herbert/Johansson (Audi R8) 1m 08.366s
4 - Lehto/Angelelli (Cadillac) 1m 08.483s
5 - Bernard/Collard (Cadillac) 1m 08.822s
6 - Magnussen/Brabham (Panoz) 1m 09.213s
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The daily ritual. First the Audi FSI Turbo V8 is pre-warmed, then started and run through a series of tests, including going through all gear changes