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WEC Nürburgring
Lotterer says cooler conditions blunted Audi's challenge
Andre Lotterer says that Audi was caught out by a cooling track in the WEC 6 Hours of Nurburgring, as the team found itself powerless to challenge sister marque Porsche for victory in the latter stages.
Filip Cleeren
Edited: Jul 25, 2016, 10:49 AM
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The podium battle in LMP1 offered up a series of tantalising duels between both Audis and an aggressive #2 Porsche driven by Neel Jani, after the points-leading car's drive-through penalty for a collision with a GTE Porsche.
In the end, both Audi R18s got the better of the Swiss driver to take second and third places, but there was nothing the Ingolstadt marque could do to catch a dominant #1 Porsche, which took victory by almost a minute.
"I think it was fair, we really pushed each other but didn’t touch,” Lotterer told Motorsport.com. "That’s the great thing in WEC. We respect each other.
"We know we can fight like that without having too many problems. Obviously as a racer you can’t be too happy finishing third, but it was great racing."
With just over an hour of the six-hour race to go, the Nurburgring battle intensified with Loic Duval in the #8 Audi and Jani in the #2 Porsche tangling horns several times, often pushing each other wide.
Duval prevailed, while the duel allowed Lotterer, who shared the #7 machine with Marcel Fassler, to close the gap with Jani and have a go himself.
“I caught up with Neel, he was quite aggressive in his defending but I think I matched his aggressiveness," added Lotterer.
"It worked out fine and I passed him. I quite easily caught up with my teammate [Duval] but then we decided to keep the position and work as a team for the championship."
Lotterer thinks Audi got caught out the changing conditions as the track got cooler. "We have very complex cars and suddenly you’re not in the sweet spot any more,” the triple Le Mans winner explained.
"Today it was a bit of loss in downforce at the front. You can easily lose a bit of pace and then the pictures changes. This is what we have to investigate, because we had a quick car and with these issues we lost a bit of pace."
Despite Audi’s defeat to its family rival, Lotterer is optimistic for the rest of the season. "We made a good step forward, so I’m really looking forward to Mexico because I think there’s more to come,” the German said.
"We know our car more and more. It’s also becoming stronger and more reliable. It becomes a nice little kit to play with."
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