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Le Mans / ALMS
ALMS: Audi Sweeps Front Row At Sebring
Audi Sport Team Joest sweeps front row for 61st Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring (Saturday, 10:30 a.m. ET Live! SPEED)...
Audi swept the front row for the Twelve Hours of Sebring. (Photo: Marshall Pruett)
Following a commanding performance all week in testing and practice, Audi unsurprisingly swept the front row for Saturday's Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring (10:30 a.m. ET Live! SPEED).
Marcel Fassler gave the German manufacturer a record-breaking pole, in what turned into an intra-team battle with Allan McNish for the top spot in the final Sebring race for P1 cars.
The Audi Sport Team Joest drivers exchanged provisional pole three times in the 15-minute session, with a 1:43.886 lap time by the defending FIA World Endurance Champion marginally edging out McNish for the top spot and new class qualifying record.
"It was a really tight battle for the pole," Fassler said. "I'm really happy because my car was great yesterday so I knew I could do it... I had a good lap but it was very [close] to Allan. It was nine-thousandths [of a second]. But being first is really cool."
Fassler and co-drivers Benoit Treluyer and Sebring debutant Oliver Jarvis are at the wheel of last year's Audi R18 e-tron quattro this weekend, compared to the 2013-spec diesel-hybrid for McNish, Tom Kristensen and Lucas Di Grassi, which bounced back from an accident in practice on Thursday.
“We knew qualifying was probably going to be a battle between the two Audis so it was a case of pushing to the absolute limit from the start,” McNish said. “Unfortunately I came across some traffic when the tires were probably at their peak but I had a clean lap the next time around.
"It was a very good lap, the maximum the car would do."
Rolling off third on the grid, and the best of the gasoline-powered P1 privateers, will be the No. 12 Rebellion Racing Lola B12/60 Toyota of Nick Heidfeld, thanks to a 1:45.456 lap set by the ex-F1 veteran.
Klaus Graf came within 0.022 seconds of Heidfeld's best lap to put the Muscle Milk Pickett Racing HPD ARX-03a fourth on the time sheets, ahead of the sister Rebellion Racing entry, qualified by Andrea Belicchi.
P2 qualifying honors went to Level 5 Motorsports, which like Audi, swept the top two positions in class.
Ryan Briscoe took pole in his ALMS return, following a spirited battle with fellow IndyCar driver, and Level 5 teammate, Ryan Hunter-Reay.
The former Penske Porsche RS Spyder pilot, however, reeled off two late flyers, both good enough for the pole. Briscoe's 1:51.159, set on his final lap, was 0.112 seconds quicker than Hunter-Reay's best in the No. 552 machine.
"It's really satisfying to see, for the crew guys and everybody, the preparation pay off when their two drivers are going head to head for the pole," Briscoe said. "[For me] it felt like a normal battle with Hunter-Reay for the pole. They were giving me lap times and said, 'You need a tenth of a second.'
"I'm pretty happy to be starting the race for the team with a 1-2."
Briscoe will share the wheel of his HPD with Marino Franchitti and Scott Tucker, while the team owner will also spend time in the sister entry with Hunter-Reay and Simon Pagenaud.
The No. 41 Greaves Motorsport Zytek Z11SN Nissan of Tom Kimber-Smith completed the top-three in P2 after topping the time charts early in the session. The two debuting Extreme Speed Motorsports HPDs were more than one-second adrift from the similarly prepared Level 5 entries.
Marcel Fassler gave the German manufacturer a record-breaking pole, in what turned into an intra-team battle with Allan McNish for the top spot in the final Sebring race for P1 cars.
The Audi Sport Team Joest drivers exchanged provisional pole three times in the 15-minute session, with a 1:43.886 lap time by the defending FIA World Endurance Champion marginally edging out McNish for the top spot and new class qualifying record.
"It was a really tight battle for the pole," Fassler said. "I'm really happy because my car was great yesterday so I knew I could do it... I had a good lap but it was very [close] to Allan. It was nine-thousandths [of a second]. But being first is really cool."
Fassler and co-drivers Benoit Treluyer and Sebring debutant Oliver Jarvis are at the wheel of last year's Audi R18 e-tron quattro this weekend, compared to the 2013-spec diesel-hybrid for McNish, Tom Kristensen and Lucas Di Grassi, which bounced back from an accident in practice on Thursday.
“We knew qualifying was probably going to be a battle between the two Audis so it was a case of pushing to the absolute limit from the start,” McNish said. “Unfortunately I came across some traffic when the tires were probably at their peak but I had a clean lap the next time around.
"It was a very good lap, the maximum the car would do."
Rolling off third on the grid, and the best of the gasoline-powered P1 privateers, will be the No. 12 Rebellion Racing Lola B12/60 Toyota of Nick Heidfeld, thanks to a 1:45.456 lap set by the ex-F1 veteran.
Klaus Graf came within 0.022 seconds of Heidfeld's best lap to put the Muscle Milk Pickett Racing HPD ARX-03a fourth on the time sheets, ahead of the sister Rebellion Racing entry, qualified by Andrea Belicchi.
P2 qualifying honors went to Level 5 Motorsports, which like Audi, swept the top two positions in class.
Ryan Briscoe took pole in his ALMS return, following a spirited battle with fellow IndyCar driver, and Level 5 teammate, Ryan Hunter-Reay.
The former Penske Porsche RS Spyder pilot, however, reeled off two late flyers, both good enough for the pole. Briscoe's 1:51.159, set on his final lap, was 0.112 seconds quicker than Hunter-Reay's best in the No. 552 machine.
"It's really satisfying to see, for the crew guys and everybody, the preparation pay off when their two drivers are going head to head for the pole," Briscoe said. "[For me] it felt like a normal battle with Hunter-Reay for the pole. They were giving me lap times and said, 'You need a tenth of a second.'
"I'm pretty happy to be starting the race for the team with a 1-2."
Briscoe will share the wheel of his HPD with Marino Franchitti and Scott Tucker, while the team owner will also spend time in the sister entry with Hunter-Reay and Simon Pagenaud.
The No. 41 Greaves Motorsport Zytek Z11SN Nissan of Tom Kimber-Smith completed the top-three in P2 after topping the time charts early in the session. The two debuting Extreme Speed Motorsports HPDs were more than one-second adrift from the similarly prepared Level 5 entries.
Monterey
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