Audi on pole in Adelaide

Adelaide, Australia - Crocodile hunters get ready: in tomorrow's season finale of the American Le Mans Series at Adelaide the Audi R8 will again start from pole position. During the 30 minutes of qualifying on the Adelaide street circuit, Rinaldo Capello who teams up with Brad Jones and Allan McNish set the fastest time in his Audi R8 sporting the crocodile design. In the companion R8 Emanuele Pirro qualified a close second only 1.7 tenths of a second behind the pole time.

The race begins on Sunday at 4:15 p.m. and ends after 6 hours or 1000 kilometers. Allan McNish (#77) and Frank Biela (#78) are scheduled to start the race in the two Audi R8s.

Rinaldo Capello (#77): "I thought I could improve my pole position time on the third lap. But unfortunately I made a little mistake, perhaps because I wanted to push too hard. Now the job of today is done. The only thing I hope is that Allan will be okay for the race tomorrow and celebrate his championship."

Emanualel Pirro (#78): "The car was perfect today I should have done better than I did. I lost very little time in almost every corner and all this together only left second position for us today. I wanted to do really well at this special event but it hasn't worked out yet. The race is another story and I would still bet a lot of money on our car."

Reinhold Joest , team director Audi Sport: "Again the drivers, mechanics and engineers did a marvelous job when finding the optimum setup for this circuit, which is new to us. It's great to achieve first and second position on the grid at such a great event. Now I hope we can turn it into a great race result as well."

Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich , head of Audi Sport: "Today we experienced what we have seen throughout the whole season, having both cars on the front row. Dindo was very motivated today which paid off in winning the pole position. But everybody is satisfied with the setup of the cars. We can expect a thrilling race tomorrow." <pre> Starting Grid for Adelaide:

Capello/Jones/McNish            Audi R8         1:23.803
Biela/Pirro                     Audi R8         1:23.978
Brabham/Murphy/Bright           Panoz           1:24.989
Katoh/O'Connell                 Panoz           1:25.168
Magnussen/Graf                  Panoz           1:26.859
Bernard/Collard                 Cadillac        1:27.551
Tinseau/Goossens                Cadillac        1:27.751
Schiattarella/de Radigues/Simon Lola            1:28.816
Konrad/Slater/Heath             Lola            1:32.960
Beretta/Wendlinger/Dupuy        Chrysler (GTS)  1:34.602

Adelaide's Race Of A Thousand Years will be televised same day on a tape-delay basis on NBC from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. on December 31st.

--Audi