Audi's Fuji defeat ''painful", admits Duval

The #8 crew of Duval, Oliver Jarvis and Lucas di Grassi led for almost the entire duration, only for the #6 Toyota to snatch the win by double-stinting its tyres in the final hour.

It meant Duval had a deficit of some 13 seconds to try and overturn in the final 45 minutes, the Frenchman missing out on victory by a mere 1.4s at the chequered flag.

Given that Audi has lost several other wins this year, most recently at the Circuit of the Americas, Duval expressed his frustration to lose out on the win having controlled the majority of the race.

“We didn’t really enjoy it,’’ he said. “It is painful to finish second because we pushed hard as we could. I think we didn’t do any mistakes as drivers or strategy.

“I think we had the quickest package once again. But it was not enough. It was very close with a lot of traffic. You lose on the other side. It was tight.

“I would have loved to pass Kamui in the last lap. I think it would have been awesome for everybody, except for them,'' he added.

Fuel capacity hurt us, says di Grassi

Unlike LMP1 rivals Toyota and Porsche, Audi utilises a diesel engine, which requires the R18 to have a smaller capacity fuel tank.

And di Grassi believes having to pit more often that its rivals has put Audi at a real disadvantage this year when it comes to strategy.

“This race was about seven stints for us, and we could do two laps less than the Porsche,’’ di Grassi said. “And with these two laps with the fuel capacity we are on the backfoot of the strategy every race.

"Here it was no exception, because it was so tight. We had to do what we did, and we did it correctly.”

Di Grassi revealed Audi was expecting Porsche to do a late-double stint, and was caught by surprise when Toyota chose that route instead.

“We were expecting Porsche to do one-and-a-half a stint at the end,'' he admitted. "But we were surprised Toyota did a short-fill and they went for a double stint.

"Porsche didn’t, because naturally they had less laps in the end. So our concern in the second part of the race was Porsche, not Toyota.”