Pole position in Bahrain

It’s an emotional time for the entire Audi Sport team heading into the weekend’s final round of the 2016 WEC season and also the last sports car race for Audi.

But despite the sentiment attached to ending what has been an extraordinary run for Audi in this racing discipline, the teams were all business in practice and qualifying, with Oliver Jarvis achieving a personal milestone by taking his first ever pole position in sports car racing and putting Audi at the front of the sixth time in nine races this season.

“The Audi R18 was fantastic to drive,” Jarvis said after blitzing the pole race. “I was able to give my all – on just a single set of tyres.”

For Audi, this marked the 81st pole position in total since the beginning of the LMP program in 1999, and the 16th best time in qualifying at 41 FIA WEC events since 2012.

Teammate Lucas di Grassi also had reason to smile, as he broke the lap record in Bahrain set by Timo Bernhard last year – taking 0.842 seconds off the record time.

While Di Grassi, Duval and Jarvis will start from pole, their teammates, Fässler, Lotterer and Tréluyer will not be far behind, securing fourth position on the grid for their Audi R18 e-tron quattro.

Head of Audi Motorsport Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich was happy about the performance of his squad: “Our team did a superb job, perfectly managed the engine change and prepared a car for our drivers in which they were more than two tenths faster than our best rival. Thank you for this team performance.” 

Although Audi Sport approaches every race with an unerring professionalism, there will certainly be a very special intensity at this final LMP1 race for the brand.

The 6 Hours of Bahrain will start on Saturday at 14:00 CET. Eurosport will offer free video live streaming of the entire race on its German website and will show the final stage (17:00–20:00 CET) live on Eurosport 1. Audi will keep fans up to speed on Facebook (AudiSport) and Twitter (@audisport). 

More information visit: FIA World Endurance Championship.