LEXINGTON,
OH. (May 21, 2005)
–Team ADT Champion Racing will start from the second row for
tomorrow’s American Le Mans Series race at Mid-Ohio. Leading
the pack will be the pole sitter Hayanari Shimoda from Zytek
Engineering, who broke the pole setting record set last year by
James Weaver from Dyson Racing. JJ Lehto qualified the No. 1
Audi R8 in third position and Emanuele Pirro will sit alongside
him in fourth position.
“Obviously we’d like to be further up the grid but we are quite
happy to be in third and fourth position,” said Brad Kettler,
Technical Director for Team ADT Champion Racing. “The cars went
almost as fast as we thought they would. The Zytek is
unbelievably fast but hasn’t been that consistent in practice.
They may be quicker in qualifying but they still have to race
us.”
25 cars will
compete tomorrow on Mid-Ohio’s 2.25-mile, 13-turn circuit. The
American Le Mans at Mid-Ohio is set for noon EDT May 22 at
Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington, Ohio. CBS Sports will
broadcast the event from 1 to 3 p.m. EDT, and live coverage will
be available on American Le Mans Series Radio at
www.americanlemans.com.
DRIVER QUOTES:
TEAM ADT CHAMPION
RACING AUDI R8 #1
JJ Lehto (Fin). Age: 39. Born: Espoo, Finland. Lives: Monte
Carlo, Monaco:
“Well you can
see the difference between the vintage cars and the cars of the
new era. We should be more than afraid of them now, Zytek and
the other cars of the future. We did the maximum that we could
do today. We still struggled with the tires. The tires have
been a bad link for us this weekend. Not enough grip and it’s
been difficult for us. It will definitely be exciting
tomorrow!”
Marco Werner (D). Age: 38.
Born: Dortmund, Germany.
Lives:
Ermatingen, Switzerland:
“It’s okay that we are
on the second row. We made a step from the practice to the
qualifying in terms of time and that’s the best way. Tomorrow
it will be important for us to hold it together. We are not
quicker than the other cars but maybe we can win it again in the
pit-stops like we have before.”
TEAM ADT CHAMPION
RACING AUDI R8 #2
Frank Biela (D). Age: 40. Born: Neuss, Germany. Lives: Monte
Carlo, Monaco:
“I think that we did a good job today. The car was much better
to drive today versus yesterday. Unfortunately it is still only
third and fourth position for us on the grid. We did expect
Zytek to be fast again today and they set an impressive time.
But we’ll see how they do tomorrow.”
Emanuele
Pirro (It). Age: 43. Born: Rome, Italy. Lives: Monte Carlo,
Monaco:
“The good news is that we are consistently improving. We
arrived here with much less experience than car No. 1 and we
have had to do a lot more work to get familiar with the car.
During qualifying I was quite happy with the set-up of the car.
Third and fourth, that’s not too bad considering we are
competing with a car (Zytek) that is running under different
rules. It’s a shame though because people then think there is a
car better than the Audi R8 and that is just not true.”
DRIVERS CLASS
TEAM
TIME DIFF.
1) H.Shimoda/T.Chilton
LMP1 Zytek Engineering
1:11.333*
2) J.Weaver/B.Leitzinger
LMP1 Dyson Racing
1:12.431 1.098
3) J.Lehto/M.Werner
LMP1 ADT Champion Racing 1:12.925
1.592
4) E.Pirro/F.Biela/
LMP1 ADT Champion Racing
1:13.184 1.851
5) C.Dyson/A.Wallace
LMP1 Dyson Racing
1:13.272 1.939
*New
qualifying lap record
For more information on Audi motorsports
visit
www.audiusa.com.
For more information on Champion Racing, visit
www.championracing.net.
For “copyright free”, hi-res images,
please visit
www.championracing.net/media.
