Allan McNish starts the opening round of the FIA World Endurance Championship from the front row of the massive 64-car grid tomorrow (SAT).
The Scotsman’s co-driver Tom Kristensen posted the second fastest time for the Sebring 12 Hours in today’s (FRI) 15-minute qualifying session in the diesel-powered “works” Audi R18 TDI.
Kristensen, the record eight-time Le Mans 24 Hour race winner, set a personal fastest time of 1min 46.215secs, an average speed of 126.762mph around the bumpy 3.74-mile, 17-corner Florida track.
“I’m very happy to be starting from the front row,” commented McNish. Tom [Kristensen] did a really good job in qualifying. We’ve worked very hard on setting up our car for the race over the past five days.”
McNish, who shares his diesel Audi Coupe with Kristensen plus Dindo Capello (Italy), is aiming for his fourth Sebring race win and Audi’s 10th since 1999.
Allan continued: “Sebring is proving not to be easy due to the large number of cars on the track – it’s going to be a very busy race in which we need a ‘clean’ run.”
Audi Sport enters three 2011-specification R18 TDI sports-prototypes in North America’s oldest sportscar race which sees the Audi of 2011 Le Mans 24 Hour race winners Marcel Fässler (CH)/André Lotterer (D)/Benoît Tréluyer (F) start from pole-position.
Lotterer posted a lap 0.395secs faster than Kristensen while Romain Dumas (F), who shares with Timo Bernhard (D) and Loïc Duval (F), made it an Audi 1-2-3 clean sweep in qualifying.
The 60th Twelve Hours of Sebring begins at 2.30pm UK time tomorrow (SAT).