Lucas Luhr earned another class pole position for Audi Sport North America, with a lap of 1min 15.879secs putting him at the head of the LMP1 category. However, he only qualified the Audi that he will share with Marco Werner eighth overall, and 2.396secs behind Brabham. The second Audi of Emanuele Pirro and Marcel Fässler was another 0.44secs back.
"It's really tough here for us, and we really didn't have the best opportunity in qualifying," Luhr sighed, "I didn't take 100 per cent of what the car has in it. The layout is not so bad here, but what hurts us are the bumps because of our weight. We could have been a little closer, but it's an impressive gap to the Acura."
Werner and Luhr have been on a tear in P1 recently, with seven consecutive class victories starting at St Petersburg. They won overall there and at Long Beach, where they started sixth overall. Luhr himself has won eight times in nine starts in ALMS street events and, with a 66-point championship lead, knows that there isn't really a need to push for more points.
"A big benefit for us was Michelin bringing the new street soft tyres for this year," he said of the Audi's street success, "We are a lot slower since last year, so I think it says we did not use the whole potential. We just need to go forward. We didn't have a lot of bite under braking. I was struggling to slow the car down. That's not a good feeling. Normally, I don't have a problem with that. I like street circuits a lot. We just have to do some work."
Jan Magnussen took the GT1 pole in Detroit for the second straight season as the first of Corvette Racing's title contenders beat out the sister car of Oliver Gavin by 1.024secs. Terry Borcheller qualified the Bell Motorsports Aston Martin DBR9 third in class.
"I think it's a good omen," the Dane, "Last year, we had an excellent race starting from pole, and built a good gap to the other car. We caught a break with the safety car and gained nearly a whole lap, although I don't think we'll get that lucky again this year."
