Audi’s R18 e-tron quattro hybrids started and finished 1–2 in the World Endurance Championship Six Hours of Bahrain Saturday.
The Le Mans-winning #1 e-tron of André Lotterer, Benoit Tréluyer, and Marcel Fässler completed 191 laps of the Sakhir Endurance circuit, finishing a lap ahead of the #2 car of Allan McNish and Tom Kristensen.
The winning Audi survived six hours in the extreme heat with no problems. The #2 car had to stop three times for repairs and lost a lap
The two Audis were not the fastest cars on the track; once again that honor belonged to the #7 Toyota TS030 Hybrid. Toyota had electrical issues which cost it four laps and then crashed in the fifth hour, giving Audi the race.
“It’s great that we won the race. We made no mistakes. The pit stops were good too,” said Marcel Fässler in a press release. “The race went a bit in our direction because the Toyota, and unfortunately our team-mates too, had various problems.”
André Lotter agreed: “First and second place is a top result for Audi. Maybe our rivals took a higher risk as a result and in the end retired due to a mistake. A brilliant performance by the team and by my team-mates.”
Heat was a serious issue at Bahrain: the temperature topped 100 degrees at the start of the race and track temp stayed high all night. Neither drivers nor tires could survive double stints. Even though most of the race was run in darkness, the temperature at the end of the race was 87 degrees F, higher than the starting temperatures for the other races on the schedule.
Both Toyota and Audi tried double-stinting: Audi left André Lotterer in for two stints but lost time near the end of the second stint as Lotterer could barely concentrate. Toyota tried it, but called it off when tire degradation slowed the car too much.
Audi qualified 1–2 but the Toyota TS030 Hybrid was fastest in race trim, taking second place on the first lap and the race lead on lap seven. Audi’s issues started in the first fifteen minutes: first the #2 car lost a headlight, then a sticking rear break wore out the left rear tire, cutting the car’s grip.
These problems were fixed at the first scheduled pit stop, but the car lost a lap which it never made up.
