Audi qualifies 1st, 2nd, and 3rd at Spa but finishes the race in 3rd place - R18 race debut

The 1000km of Spa-Francorchamps is the first official race for the Audi R18. 3rd place is not a bad finish obviously but a disappointment considering the R18 had a perfect qualification for the race taking spots 1-3. Audi was bested by Peugeot, their main rival, who took first and second place. We expect Audi to rebound strongly in time for the LeMans 24 hours which will be the real test.

Results:

1 Gené/Wurz/Davidson (Peugeot) 161 laps in 6h 02m 03.799s
2 Montagny/Sarrazin/Minassian (Peugeot) + 42.965s
3 Capello/Kristensen/McNish (Audi R18 TDI) - 1 lap
4 Bernhard/Dumas/Rockenfeller (Audi R18 TDI) – 2 laps
5 Fässler/Lotterer/Tréluyer (Audi R18 TDI) - 3 laps
6 Collard/Tinseau/Jousse (Pescarolo-Judd) - 5 laps
7 Jani/Prost (Lola-Toyota) - 5 laps
8 Lamy/Bourdais/Pagenaud (Peugeot) - 6 laps
9 Belicchi/Boullion (Lola-Toyota) - 6 laps
10 Lapierre/Duval/Panis (Peugeot) - 9 laps

Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich (Head of Audi Motorsport):

"Naturally, the result of the race at Spa is disappointing for us because the Audi R18 TDI was clearly beaten below its potential on its debut. We were on a par with Peugeot in terms of pure speed but there were simply too may small things that went wrong – and unfortunately with all three cars. That was certainly frustrating. We’ll take hom the positive finding of having a fast car that we’ll have to make better use of though. We’ve learned a lot today in racing conditions. Now we’ve got to put these findings into action before Le Mans.”