Unsurprisingly, Audi’s R18 hybrids and Ultras qualified 1–4 for the World Endurance Championship’s second round, the Six Hours of Spa.
The turbodiesel Audis, two with electric assist, are by far the best-budgeted cars on the grid. Even if the rules id not favor diesels and hybrids, Audi would likely lead the fields through sheer spending; a factory effort can do so much more testing and development, employ so many more engineers and fabricators, and rent track time at will, where private efforts simply cannot.
This takes nothing away from Audi’s efforts. The four cars, all brand new to competition, ran flawlessly in every practice and qualifying session. Audi did its homework: the factory brought the best designs, tested and tweaked them to near perfection, put the best drivers behind the wheels and the best crews in the pits. Audi is reaping the benefits of hard work; they have earned their place at the front.
In past events Audi has sometimes beat itself. Unforeseen issues not revealed in non-competition testing (pick-up in the intercooler vents, overheating brakes;) over-enthusiastic driving leading to collisions; less than Audi-like strategy and pit work have occasionally slowed the Ingolstadt train.
Last year, of course, the Peugeots were just faster. Audi lost everything except Le Mans because Peugeot out-Audied Audi—preparation, execution, engineering, reliability all favored the French team by a small margin. The Peugeot chassis was kinder to tires, quicker in top end—the car worked better, and the crews backed it up.
This year Toyota is entering the arena, but realistically the Japanese team won’t be a credible threat until 2013. Toyota never budgeted for a full-scale campaign in 2012, and crashes in testing have set them back even further. 2012 is Audi’s year to run rampant through WEC’s LMP1 class. All the action will be among the also-rans.
Allan McNish in the #2 Audi R18 e-tron Quattro led the field with a lap of 2.01.579 at 207.4 kph, followed by Marco Bonanomi’s #4 R18 Ultra, Marcel Fässler’s #1 e-tron quattro, and Loïc Duval’s #3 R18 Ultra. The Audis achieved total domination with only two fast laps each.
The car closest to the Audis, the #12 Rebellion Racing Lola-Toyota, was 2.655 seconds off the pace of the leading Audi, and 1.529 behind the slowest, with a lap of 2:04.234 at 203 kph.
