Partially heavy rain impaired the work of the teams on Wednesday and Thursday. Free practice was interrupted several times and the battle for the best grid positions was marked by numerous yellow flags, slow zones and plenty of rain.
“In these conditions, it was extremely difficult to work out a perfect set-up for the race,” said Head of Audi Motorsport Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich. “But that applies to our competitors as well. We now have to make the best of the data and the information from our drivers.”
The battle for the front grid positions was decided right at the beginning of the first qualifying session on Wednesday night. At that time, the pit crews were working on both Audi R18 cars. André Lotterer subsequently set the fifth-best time of 3m 22.780s. The “sister car” in position six was only 43 thousandths of a second slower.