ALMS

Las Vegas qualifying report

Audi's Allan McNish moved another step closer to the Le Mans Series driver's title by clinching pole position at the penultimate round of the championship at Las Vegas overnight. McNish clinched Audi's eighth consecutive pole and the fifth in a ...

Edited: Apr 15, 2002, 11:45 PM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

Audi's Allan McNish moved another step closer to the Le Mans Series driver's title by clinching pole position at the penultimate round of the championship at Las Vegas overnight.

McNish clinched Audi's eighth consecutive pole and the fifth in a row for the #77 car of McNish and Dindo Capello.

"The circuit was much quicker in the second qualifying session and we had to go for the pole right out of the box," McNish said.

"The edge goes off after two or three laps. I had to push straight away. At the end session, I ran around in case I was challenged. That was pretty much all that was in the car."

McNish is also mindful that traffic could play a major role in tomorrow's result, with contact with a slower car possibly earning a stop-go penalty and fine.

"I will take the traffic tomorrow as I have done all year," McNish said.

"I'll be forceful, but not stupid. The Prototypes, GTS, and GT cars all have to live on the circuit together. We're well aware of the situation and must not make deliberate, stupid contact."

After challenging Audi strongly in the previous race at Laguna Seca, the Panoz duo of Australia's David Brabham and Danish star Jan Magnussen were disappointed not give the Audis a tougher fight in qualifying after being third fastest.

Magnussen had his final shot at qualifying this weekend, with Brabham due to get the job at the final race of the season in Adelaide.

"It was very difficult today to get a quick qualifying time because we were running out of both time and fuel," Magnussen said.

"I came in half way through the session and we made a few small changes which made the car a bit better, but the Audis are so quick we couldn't catch them.

"I just hope I can get a good start tomorrow to make it an exciting race."

The Dodge Viper GTS squad fought back after Corvette set the pace yesterday, with Olivier Beretta grabbing pole position in the car he will share with Karl Wendlinger.

The pole position was the seventh for the French ORECA team this season and 5th for Beretta.

Dirk Muller's hopes of maintaining his points lead in the GT division received a boost when headed rival Randy Pobst in qualifying. Both the German and American drivers are armed with a Porsche GT3-R. <pre> QUALIFYING - PROTOTYPE DIVISION 1. - Allan McNish/Rinaldo Capello - Audi - 1:06.628 2. - Frank Biela/Emanuele Pirro - Audi - 1:06.827 3. - Jan Magnussen/David Brabham - Panoz - 1:07.527 4. - JJ Lehto/Jorg Muller - BMW - 1:07.637 5. - Johnny O'Connell/Hiroki Katoh - Panoz - 1:08.242 GTS DIVISION 1. - Olivier Beretta/Karl Wendlinger - Dodge Viper - 1:14.153 GT DIVISION 1. - Dirk Muller/Lucas Luhr - Porsche GT3-R - 1:17.838

-Paul ryan

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?

Take our 5 minute survey.

- The Motorsport.com Team

Read and post comments

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article McNish wins Las Vegas provisional pole

Next article BMW Team PTG podium at Las Vegas

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

Brennan Poole joins Jordan Anderson Racing for 2027 NASCAR O'Reilly season

NASCAR O'Reilly

NOAP NASCAR O'Reilly

Phoenix II

7 min

Brennan Poole joins Jordan Anderson Racing for 2027 NASCAR O'Reilly season

Kaden Honeycutt wins incident-free Phoenix NASCAR Truck race, extends points lead

NASCAR Truck

NSTR NASCAR Truck

Phoenix

4 h

Kaden Honeycutt wins incident-free Phoenix NASCAR Truck race, extends points lead

GTA VI 'Vice City' blimp to appear at NASCAR championship weekend

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Phoenix II

9 h

GTA VI 'Vice City' blimp to appear at NASCAR championship weekend

Verstappen Racing struggles to 15th as Porsche takes emotional Portimao pole

GT World Challenge Europe Endurance

WCEE GT World Challenge Europe Endurance 9 h

Verstappen Racing struggles to 15th as Porsche takes emotional Portimao pole

Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.

From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.

You have 2 options:

Become a subscriber.
Disable your adblocker.

Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here

Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page

Manage Alerts