Audi's Marco Werner set a new track record for LMP1 sports cars in qualifying for Saturday's Acura Sports Car Challenge at Mid-Ohio - but he will still only line up in fifth place on the grid.
On a track that traditionally favours the lighter LMP2 sports cars, Werner pulled out all the stops in the #2 Audi R10 TD1 he shares with Lucas Luhr and posted top times on numerous occasions, before finally dropping back in the final stages of the 20-minute qualifying session.
In the end he missed pole position by only 0.388 seconds and the front row by just 164 thousandths of a second.
"I gave everything. It was fun and went well. I went quicker from lap to lap as the tyres got better," said Werner. "The decision to swap the tyres from left to right in the middle of the session was also right. We made another step. I'm satisfied with my time, but not so much with fifth position.
"Nevertheless, it looks good for the race. The first five cars are close together. In the race we are usually running closer to the qualifying pace than the others."
"I am very positive because we are very close to the LM P2 cars and only about three tenths away from pole," added Luhr. "This has been quite different in the past, especially on such tracks. We know that we tend to be much better in the race than in qualifying. That gives us all confidence. Now we need to fine-tune our set-up, then we should be well prepared for the race."
The second Audi R10 TDI of Dindo Capello and Emanuele Pirro meanwhile will start the race from seventh place.
Capello was able to go out on the track only after ten minutes after being held in the pits by the race director - a late and not uncontroversial penalty following a collision with a GT1 car last weekend at Lime Rock.
"Having had only ten minutes for qualifying was a little bit too short, especially as it takes a lot of time here to get the tyres to work," he explained. "When I saw 1m 08.9s I said: The trend is good.
