“I want to thank Christijan who did a very good job in his first sportscar race. And I really want to thank all the people who said a lot of very nice things about me here."

With a 1-2 finish to cap the season at a circuit that was expected to favour the LMP2 machinery, head of Audi motorsport Dr Wolfgang Ullrich declared himself a happy man and said the 2008 campaign has been one of the best he had seen.

"This was a great finale with a superb victory for Audi at the end of a very good season,” he said, “This season we certainly have not always been the fastest ones in qualifying. But with hard work, a very good strategy, a great squad and a really good race pace weve always been able to turn things around to us.

“The races in this year's American Le Mans Series have been very exciting until the very end. We've seen motorsport at its best in all the races."