Audi Silverstone qualifying

Silverstone, England - The Audi Sport R8R's qualified in fourth and eighth position for the P&O Stena Line Silverstone 500k to be run starting at 6:00 p.m. today.

The warmer temperatures affected the speed of the cars as well as track conditions making qualifying times generally slower than Friday.

Allan McNish, driver of the number 77 Audi Sport R8R, relied on his time from Friday to keep him in the fourth starting position for the race. "The track conditions caused everyone to go slower, relying on their times from yesterday. The car felt very similar to yesterday, except there is less grip on the track. We will have to sit down and talk about strategy for the race as that will be the key," said McNish.

Emanuele Pirro qualified the number 78 Audi in eighth position. "We made a down force adjustment on the front of the car before qualifying which improved the handling. I had hoped to improve on my time from yesterday, but could not get a clean lap, at least we improved the car for the race," said Pirro.

Dr. Ullrich, head of Audi Sport, commented "the track conditions caused everyone to go slower. Allan has a good starting position. Emanuele improved his car, but the track conditions and traffic did not allow him to improve his time. Allan made some changes to his car that we will talk about putting those on the 78 car. We are hopeful for a podium finish."

The BMW of J.J Letho was the only car to improve their qualifying time from Friday, moving the Audi back one position on the grid.

Audi is competing with the '99 version R8R as the 2000 cars are currently being prepared for Le Mans in June.

Audi R8R line-up for Silverstone: #77 Allan McNish/Rinaldo Capello 78 Frank Biela/Emanuele Pirro/Michele Alboreto

<pre> ALMS Final Qualifying for Silverstone:

1.  Lola/Judd       Schiattarella   1:37.030
2.  Panoz           Brabham         1:37.360
3.  Panoz           Katoh           1:37.485
4.  Audi Sport R8R  Allan McNish    1:37.495
5.  BMW V12 LMR     Lehto           1:38.059
6.  Lola/Judd       Johansson       1:38.107
7.  Audi Sport R8R  Emanuele Pirro  1:38.713
8.  Riley & Scott   Simo            1:39.046
9.  BMW             Lehto           1:39.416
10. Cadillac Northstar  Goossens    1:40.259

The Silverstone race will be televised on Monday, May 15 at 9:00 p.m. on Speedvision.