McNish fourth in Audi hybridposted in LMANS05 | 05 | 2012
SCOTLAND'S ALLAN McNISH continued the development of his all-new Audi diesel hybrid by bringing the car home fourth at Spa-Francorchamps. Audi took all four top places.
Contesting the second round of the FIA World Endurance Championship, the 42-year-old from Dumfries, partnered by Tom Kristensen (Denmark) and Dindo Capello (Italy), gave the revolutionary Audi R18 e-tron quattro (pictured) a stunning race debut.
Covering almost 700-miles in the Spa Six Hours race, staged in first wet then dry weather conditions, McNish had made history the previous day by securing the first-ever pole-position for a diesel hybrid sportscar
But due to a series of small, but costly glitches with the new car — including a problem with the front left lights which forced his pitcrew to replace the bonnet — McNish's car finished a lap down on the winners.
In what was essentially a six-hour test programme for the new Audi diesel hybrid, it also became clear the car's set-up was causing excessive wear on its rear tyres, especially the right-rear.
Audi ace Allan McNish bags pole position at Spa
This was highlighted when Capello was asked to triple-stint the final set of tyres. The car though developed heavy understeer towards the end, and he was forced to make an unscheduled stop as the car's pace fell off.
The trio of Spaniard Marc Gene, and Frenchmen Romain Dumas and Loïc Duval brought their diesel Audi R18 ultra sportscar home just 46.801secs ahead of the second-placed Audi.
The result means McNish, who won the opening WEC in Florida two months ago, is now second in the series, just two points down on Duval and Dumas.
“Spa throws up a lot of things," McNish said afterwards, "and we knew this race was going to be tricky with the weather. We knew that it was going to be a learning curve for our R18 e-tron quattro.
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“Unfortunately it was more difficult than we expected in terms of the balance of our Audi. We tried various things to overcome a performance disadvantage.
“Today was a big difference from Friday when I was able to claim pole-position. But Audi Sport will now go away and improve the Audi R18 e-tron quattro for Le Mans.”
The Audi R18 e-tron quattro is the first Audi race car no longer accelerated exclusively by a combustion engine. Both the R18 e-tron quattro and the R18 ultra feature a V6, 3.7-litre turbocharged diesel engine.
Attention now changes to the third round of the WEC, the Le Mans 24 Hours next month – a race which sees Audi bidding for an eleventh win.
An official one-day test for all invited race entries is staged at the French track on June 3, ahead of the classic endurance 24 hours on the 16/17.
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Jim McGill