The sister car from Audi Sport Team Joest followed in position five, with a deficit to the front runner of 406 thousandths. “Basically, the balance of our car is good and my lap was quite okay,” said Benoît Tréluyer. “The gaps are very close. I’m sure the race will be thrilling.” His teammate Marcel Fässler added: “We tried to save tires for the race on Sunday. So, as far as that’s concerned, our qualifying wasn’t exactly perfect. It was simply a tactical choice that will hopefully pay off on Sunday.”
Stefan Dreyer, Head of LMP at Audi Sport, positively summed up the final qualifying session: “The best time would have been possible today but unfortunately Loïc Duval didn’t catch a clear lap. Both Audi R18 cars were running perfectly in Saturday’s sessions. I have a good feeling following the practice and qualifying sessions we’ve had so far. We know that we’re in for a very challenging race.”
The 6-hour race will start on Sunday at 11:00 local time (04:00 CET). Eurosport will be offering free live video streaming of the entire race on its German website and airing live TV coverage of the final stage (08:30 to 10:15 Uhr CET MEZ) on Eurosport 1. Audi is keeping its fans up to speed on Facebook (AudiSport) and Twitter (@audisport).
Qualifying results
1 Bernhard/Hartley/Webber (Porsche) 1m 44.462s
2 Buemi/Davidson/Nakajima (Toyota) 1m 44.522s
3 Di Grassi/Duval/Jarvis (Audi R18) 1m 44.610s
4 Conway/Kobayashi/Sarrazin (Toyota) 1m 44.810s
5 Fässler/Lotterer/Tréluyer (Audi R18) 1m 44.868s
6 Dumas/Jani/Lieb (Porsche) 1m 45.051s
7 Imperatori/Kraihamer/Tuscher (Rebellion) 1m 49.828s
8 Kaffer/Trummer/Webb (CLM-AER) 1m 51.285s
9 Bradley/Lynn/Rao (Oreca-Nissan) 1m 54.225s
10 Lapierre/Menezes/Richelmi (Alpine-Nissan) 1m 54.382s
– End –