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Audi R10 TDI leads LM P1 category - Saturday, May 19, 2007
at 11:26
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Ingolstadt, 19 May 2007
Dindo Capello on fourth row at Salt Lake City
Sister car sets second fastest time in LM P1 class
Lighter LM P2 cars dominate qualifying
The Audi R10 TDI of Dindo Capello (Italy) and Allan McNish (Scotland) will start Saturday’s fifth round of the American Le Mans Series (ALMS) at Salt Lake City (US state of Utah) as fastest LM P1 prototype from the fourth row. Emanuele Pirro (Italy) and Marco Werner (Germany) start one place behind in their "sister" Audi Sport North America R10 TDI after Friday’s qualifying around the 4.486-mile track was dominated by the lighter LM P2 category cars which filled the top-seven positions.
Defending ALMS LM P1 champions Dindo Capello and Allan McNish head team-mates Emanuele Pirro, the winner of the corresponding Salt Lake City race 10 months ago, and Marco Werner, competing here for the very first time, by eight-points – Audi having won its class in every race so far this season.
The race at Miller Motorsports Park, situated about 30 miles from Salt Lake City, starts on Saturday at 5:05 p.m. local time (1:05 a.m. on Sunday morning in Germany) and lasts 2:45 hours.
Quotes after qualifying
Dindo Capello (Audi R10 TDI #1): "I put a lot of effort in to qualifying – I was trying that hard that I spun near the end. If I’d driven a perfect lap maybe I could have gone perhaps two-tenth’s faster but even that would not have moved me any higher up the grid. We must check the car thoroughly after my spin.”
Allan McNish (Audi R10 TDI #1): "Dindo pushed very hard in qualifying and extracted the maximum out of our car. But unfortunately around this circuit, which admittedly has a long straight, was only good enough for eighth place on the grid because of the large number of slow corners here – significantly almost three seconds from pole-position. We came here expecting a large time gap after computer simulations. The race will be a big, big fight for us in terms of an outright podium position.”
Emanuele Pirro (Audi R10 TDI #2): "Again we are facing the situation that the lighter cars are significantly quicker than us. We have to try the best we can in the race with what we have. During the free practice I went off. The mechanics fixed it quickly for the qualifying. We could have maybe been a little better in the qualifying, but the LM P2 cars are unbeatable.”
Marco Werner (Audi R10 TDI #2): "The qualifying was disappointing for us. We were faster than last year, our lap times were good, but the LM P2 cars drive in their own world. I am at Salt Lake City for the first time. It is a very interesting and difficult track. It was not easy for me to get a good lap time in the test on Thursday, because the track is very flat and all the corners look the same. But I improved and was quite good on Friday morning.”
Dave Maraj (Team Director Audi Sport North America): "We knew qualifying would be hard against the Porsche Spyders especially, remember they set the fastest race lap here last year, but I am honestly amazed at the gap from P1 to the fastest Audi in P8. Both Dindo and Emanuele did everything they could in qualifying as did the team and both were faster than Frank Biela’s pole from here last year. But the pole-setting Porsche is an incredible 3.5secs faster than the 2006 pole – it’s unbelievable.”
The starting grid at Salt Lake City
1. Dumas/Bernhard (Porsche) 2m 18.218s
2. Maassen/Briscoe (Porsche) 2m 18.808s
3. Fernandez/Diaz (Lola-Acura/Honda) 2m 19.443s
4. Dyson/Smith (Porsche) 2m 20.097s
5. Brabham/Johansson/Dayton (Acura/Honda) 2m 20.389s
6. Herta/Franchitti (Acura/Honda) 2m 20.648s
7. Wallace/Leitzinger (Porsche) 2m 20.720s
8. McNish/Capello (Audi R10 TDI) 2m 21.043s (1st LM P1)
9. Werner/Pirro (Audi R10 TDI) 2m 21.450s (2nd LM P1)
10. Bach/Devlin (Lola) 2m 24.923s
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