# LMS: Audi on Front Row in Spa for Le Mans Dress Rehearsal



## [email protected] (Apr 9, 2004)

Ingolstadt/Spa-Francorchamps, May 8, 2010 - Audi will tackle the dress rehearsal for the Le Mans 24 Hours from the front row of the starting grid. Timo Bernhard qualified second for the 1000 km of Spa-Francorchamps (Belgium) with a time of 1m 58.519s (212.746 km/h). 

On the 7.004-km track, the German was just 0.635 seconds slower than pole setter Sébastien Bourdais in the Peugeot 908. Audi Sport Team Joest had expected a bigger gap because, in contrast to the competition, all three Audi R15 TDI prototypes are running in full Le Mans spec - and thus with much less down force than usual at Spa-Francorchamps. 

* Full Story *


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## John Carter (Dec 12, 2006)

Well I think it's safe to say that Peugeot wiped the floor with Audi today at Spa. Ullrich & co. have some serious work to do over the next four weeks if we're to avoid a repeat of last year's disaster at La Sarthe.


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## chernaudi (Oct 6, 2006)

Audi ran in LM trim, while Peugeot set their cars up for a sprint race. Drivers say that they were fine in the dry and when it was wet enough for wet tires, but when it was greasy but dry enough to stay on slicks, that's where Peugeot had a big advantage because their high downforce set up allowed them to keep the slicks warm enough to not have to take intermediates. Audi would've been better if they ran a high downforce set up.


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## [email protected] (Apr 9, 2004)

Good point. You can't discount setup and they were still competitive. My hope is that they're every bit as fast if not faster during the Le Mans race week because the days of counting on Peugeot to screw up or the car to break during such a long race are over. Fortunately though they won't have Brabs this year and I believe he was pretty instrumental in his car's reliability and dominance last year.


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