Audi's attempts to win this year's edition of the Nurburgring 24 Hours got off to an excellent start as the qualifying session for the event ended with four examples of the R8 LMS racer filling out the first four grid positions for this weekend's race.
This will be the first time in the history of the 24-hour race at the Nürburgring that an Audi will start from pole position.
Three-time Le Mans winner Marco Werner finished first in an Audi R8 LMS run by ABT Sportsline. Werner broke the existing lap record for the current Nürburgring circuit layout by almost two seconds with a lap time of 8 minutes and 24.753 seconds.
Werner was followed by Mike Rockenfeller with an R8 from Phoenix Racing (8:25.568), Lucas Luhr with an R8 run by ABT ( 8:27.967) and Pierre Kaffer with an R8 from Phoenix Racing (8:29.250).
"That four of our customer cars occupy the first four grid positions underlines the qualities of the Audi R8 LMS on the world's longest and most demanding race track and is fantastic advertising for our new customer car, which we have developed over the last two-and-a-half years," said the head of Audi Motorsport Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich.
The starting grid at the 24h of Nürburgring
1 Ekström/Jarvis/Scheider/Werner (Audi R8 LMS) 8m 24.753s
2 Basseng/Rockenfeller/Stippler/Stuck (Audi R8 LMS) 8m 25.568s
3 Abt/Collard/Luhr/Mies (Audi R8 LMS) 8m 27.967s
4 Biela/Fässler/Hennerici/Kaffer (Audi R8 LMS) 8m 29.250s
5 Arnold/Menzel/Westbrook/Margaritis (Porsche) 8m 29.521s
6 Mamerow/Henzler/Hardt (Porsche) 8m 29.779s
7 Lieb/Bernhard/Dumas/Tiemann (Porsche) 8m 30.323s
8 Müller/Farfus/Alzen/Lamy (BMW) 8m 32.861s
9 Bergmeister/Lietz/Holzer/Ragginger (Porsche) 8m 34.427s
10 Alzen/Schwager/Jäger/Bert (Porsche) 8m 34.906s
