Audi and Nissan both passed through the traditional scrutinising session in the Place de la Republique this afternoon. There is though a second private scrutineering session behind closed doors this week for the hybrid LMP1s, believed to be to inspect the ERS systems in a more controlled environment.
Dr Wolfgang Ullrich
Your thoughts on the competition this year?
“For sure it’s a very strong level of competition this year ,we’ve seen this in the first two races and I think there are quite a number of cars that can win this race and therefore it will be nice for the spectators and stessful for us!”
The Porsche is very quick in a straight line, but Audi’s strength seems to be in the high-speed corners, does this mean getting caught behind a backmarker going into the Porsche Curves for example will hurt you more?
“We’ve seen this in Silverstone and Spa, but the character of this racetrack is a little bit different and if you look at the sector times from Test Day, you see that the Porsches are not really that far off in the fast corners! You have to take the traffic as it comes, but the more power you have for a short burst to overtake, the easier you can overtake, so there they have a little bit of an advantage for sure, and they will use it. The rest is about staying out of trouble and running constantly quickly through the 24 hours.”
Will there be any focus on qualifying ahead of the Porsches?
“They can change the order at the first straight, so there’s no point, and I don’t think we’ll be able to do the same lap times they can do for qualifying. Their car concept allows them to charge the car for one lap and discharge for one lap. If we tried to do that, it wouldn’t help us.”
And what happens if it rains?
“It will come down to wet setup, the drivers’ concentration and getting enough temperature in the rain tyres.”
Drivers have been told not to expect safety cars this year, with Code 60 used wherever possible. A good move?
“Yes – I think it’s mainly to avoid the cars running slowly for too long and getting too cold, and also to avoid taking the average speed of the race down too much. I think it’s a good decision for safety as well and I hope it works out. The tests that have been done.”
Will you be keeping an eye on Laurens Vanthoor in P2? I know he’s keen to move up to P1 sooner rather than later?
“Laurens? I always keep an eye on him!”
Andre Lotterer, #7 R18 etron quattro
What do you think of the competition this year?
“Well, they’re here! Porsche looks strong and is definitely our main contender, we have a good game to play there. Toyota looks to be behind a little bit, but it will be an intense battle at the front. And even though Toyota’s a little bit slow, it’s Le Mans, there’s a lot that can happen so they could be up there too.
Could you learn much at the Test Day?
“Unfortunately not, no, the weather was very tricky. We all need to see how our tyres are working and so on, so there’s more to be done there on Wednesday.”
Audi’s particular strength looks to be in high-speed corners – does this mean you need a clear lap to set you best times and are you going to be particularly hurt by traffic?
“Yeah, that’s the advantage they have on the straight, traffic or no traffic. We have to keep our momentum. But it’s like this, they’re in the 8MJ class, they’ve got massive acceleration, double the boost we have. It’s a very brave technology to choose and they should be around a second a lap faster, hopefully we can make up the defecit with aero!”
Are you approaching qualifying any differently this year? Is there any advantage of lining up ahead of some or all of the Porsches?
“No, because they’ll just get back in front before they first chicane. It’s like every year really, we’re just going to focus on our race setup and if we have the chance we’ll play a little bit too!
René Rast, #9 R18 e-tron quattro
“When I got the call to tell me I was part of the LMP1 programme I genuinely couldn’t believe it. I mean, I was on the phone, and I got goosebumps. It would not be an overstatement to say that this has been a dream come true. A mark of this team, though, is that I was involved and felt a part of it very, very quickly, despite the fact that it is very different from anything else I’ve ever driven or raced before. I feel very comfortable in the car and better prepared than ever before. In a very short time, it got to feel very normal.”
On the #9 car’s driver line-up: “It’s a great line.-up. I knew Filipe (Albuquerque) from our GT programmes together but had never met Marco (Bonanomi) properly, but they are both great guys, very professional, very fast, and great company.”
On the chance to win Le Mans, he smiled: “There’s a chance of course, but we need, speed, consistency, and total reliability and then some luck. Taking all that into account, we just have seven cars to beat.”
