Motorsport News: Audi finishes on the podium in inaugural ILMC race

A differential failure on the sister car driven by Tom Kristensen and Allan McNish after just 15 of the 170 laps prevented a better result after the strong qualifying performance with grid positions one and two. In front of a crowd of 40,000 spectators McNish had taken the lead after starting from the pole position and fought a spectacular duel with the subsequent winner Anthony Davidson in the Peugeot in the early phase before the R15 TDI designated as car number "7" started to coast on the track without drive. It was the first retirement due to a technical failure since the launch of the R15 project and the first for Audi Sport Team Joest in more than four years.

The unusual defect on the differential, which will be carefully examined in the next few days at Audi Sport in Ingolstadt, affected the race of Timo Bernhard and Dindo Capello as well. Because the team did not want to take any risks with the tire strategy with one remaining car the tires of the second R15 TDI were changed at the first refueling stop to be on the safe side. This caused Bernhard/Capello to lose contact with the leading Peugeot that was driving two stints on one set of tires from the outset.

In addition, unusually heavy understeer caused the gap to the leading Peugeot to increase to slightly more than one minute by the end of the first half of the race. In the second half Bernhard/Capello were able to keep the pace of the front runners and to even reduce the gap to about 50 seconds. However, an additional refueling stop three laps before the finish locked third place of the German-Italion duo in concrete.

For Peugeot, the victory at Silverstone was sweet revenge for the defeat at this year's Le Mans 24 hours in June.

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