Audi occupies top 3 spots for 2013 Le Mans 24 Hours

Fine tuned and better engineered versions of Audi’s R18 etron quattros, that celebrated the first-ever hybrid victory at Le Mans last year have once again managed to comfortably outpace the competition on the 13.629-kilometer race track in Western France on both days of qualifying.

In its 90th year the Le Mans 24 Hours race will start with Audi Sport Team Joest’s three Audi R18 e-tron quattro cars on the front row. The fastest time of 3m 22.349s (242.5 km/h), which Loïc Duval achieved right at the beginning of the first qualifying session on Wednesday night, remained unbeaten on Thursday. Behind the wheel of car number ‘2’ it is the 31-year-old Frenchman’s debut on pole, running together with Le Mans record winner Tom Kristensen and Allan McNish.

As achieved by the brand with the four rings seven times before, in 2013 Audi has once again secured top positions on the grid. Starting the race from position two on Saturday will be the number ‘1’ Audi R18 e-tron quattro belonging to last year’s winners Marcel Fässler, André Lotterer and Benoît Tréluyer. 

Lotterer was one of the few drivers who in the final qualifying session on Thursday night managed to improve over the previous day by setting a time of 3m 23.696s, thereby advancing from third to second place on the final grid.

Le Mans newcomer Lucas di Grassi, Marc Gené and Oliver Jarvis in the number ‘3’ Audi R18 e-tron quattro secured third place.  Although several race incidents caused red flags and shortened the time available for qualifying all three Audi teams managed to optimize the set-up of the three Audi R18 e-tron quattro cars on Thursday night for the race.

Qualifying results

1 Duval/Kristensen/McNish (Audi R18 e-tron quattro) 3m 22.349s 

2 Fässler/Lotterer/Tréluyer (Audi R18 e-tron quattro) 3m 23.696s

3 di Grassi/Gené/Jarvis (Audi R18 e-tron quattro) 3m 24.341s

4 Davidson/Buemi/Sarrazin (Toyota) 3m 26.654s

5 Wurz/Lapierre/Nakajima (Toyota) 3m 26.676s

6 Prost/Jani/Heidfeld (Lola-Toyota) 3m 28.935s

7 Belicchi/Beche/Cheng (Lola-Toyota) 3m 32.167s

8 Leventis/Watts/Kane (HPD-Honda) 3m 36.547s

9 Pla/Heinemeier/Brundle (Morgan-Nissan) 3m 38.621s

10 Rusinov/Martin/Conway (Oreca-Nissan) 3m 39.535s