New Audi engines race to favored status

TOOELE — The new-generation diesel engine by Audi has proven itself worthy of being called a "race favorite." The Audi diesel won the 24-hour Le Mans in France earlier this year.

At Miller Motorsports Park Friday, in qualifying for Saturday's American Le Mans Series race, the high-performance, extremely quiet diesel engine powered both the No. 1 and No. 2 qualifiers.

Come race time today (6 p.m.) the identical-twin silver Le Mans Prototype 1s will be sitting side-by-side on the front row.

Frank Biela of Neuss, Germany, was in the No. 3 qualifying spot when he chose to leave the track, swap tires — lefts to the right side and rights to the left side — and came back with one lap left to set the fastest time. He drove the Audi R10 to a time of 2 minutes, 22.08 seconds around the 4.5-mile twisting, turning track.

His teammate in the second Audi, Allan McNish of Dumfries, Scotland, had the second fastest time at 2:22.109.

In the Le Mans Prototype 2 class, Lucas Luhr of Koblenz, Germany, set the fastest time at 2:23.387 in a Porsche RS Spider.

As expected, all of the prototype cars qualified well ahead of the two Grand Touring classes.

Tomas Egne of Liberec, Czech Republic, driving an Aston Martin DBR9 in the GT1 class, had the fastest time at 2:34.953. The second Aston Martin car was second in the class.

In the GT2 class, Jaime Melo of Cascavel, Brazil, set the top time in his Ferrari 430 at 2:44.02.

Following qualifying, drivers agreed on a couple of points:

• The track is long. At 4.5 miles, it is the longest circuit (track) in the 10-race series.

• The turns are tricky and come up quickly.

• The one thing this track takes more of than any of the other tracks is concentration.

• And, it's hot. Which, they agreed, was good in that it gave the tires a good grip on the track. But it's bad in that heat is wearing on tires and drivers. Also, being a new track, the surface has more grit, which also wears tires. Because of it, series officials have given each team two tire changes, if needed, instead of the usual one.

Biela, who will share driving duties with teammate Emanuele Pirro of Italy, said this track is different in that it will require carrying more speed into the corner.