Apr 26, 2008
The two Audi R10 TDI cars fielded by Audi Sport Team Joest will start to the 1000-kilometre race at Monza (Italy) from the second row on Sunday. Local hero Dindo Capello set the third-best time in Saturday’s qualifying. Team-mate Mike Rockenfeller was merely 137 thousandths of a second slower and captured fourth place on the grid.
Capello’s motivation for his "home race” is particularly high: exactly 20 years ago the Italian won the "Gran Premio della Lotteria”, a very important Formula 3 race back then. Capello set his quickest time as early as on his first flying lap of qualifying before being slowed by other cars.
Youngster Mike Rockenfeller in the sister car came close to the time set by his more seasoned team-mate. However, a small mistake in the Ascari chicane cost him crucial fractions of a second.
Both Audi drivers in qualifying clearly stayed below last year’s pole time (1m 34.503s), below which the best Peugeot was clocked by more than three seconds – giving proof yet again of the breath-taking speed of technological development in the prototype category.
The starting grid at Monza
1 Gené/Minassian (Peugeot) 1m 31.470s
2 Lamy/Sarrazin (Peugeot) 1m 31.957s
3 Capello/McNish (Audi R10 TDI) 1m 33.193s
4 Prémat/Rockenfeller (Audi R10 TDI) 1m 33.330s
5 Charouz/Mücke (Lola-Aston Martin) 1m 34.170s
6 Panis/Lapierre (Courage Oreca-Judd) 1m 35.303s
7 Campbell-Walter/Hall (Creation) 1m 35.869s
8 Ortelli/Ayari (Courage Oreca-Judd) 1m 35.891s
9 Boullion/Collard (Pescarolo-Judd) 1m 36.117s
10 Verstappen/van Merksteijn (Porsche) 1m 36.842s
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