Audi ace Duval admits Austin defeat was “massive loss”

In Mexico City two weeks ago, the #8 car of Duval, Oliver Jarvis and Lucas di Grassi was in contention for the win when a wheel-bearing failure caused Jarvis to crash.

In Austin last weekend, the car was leading once again when an electrical failure – compounded by an extra pitstop to close the car’s door – cost them their shot at victory.

Although it salvaged second place, the #8 crew only gained a few points on the series-leading #2 Porsche, and lies 37.5 points behind with three races remaining.

“To be honest, even though the [Porsche] guys did a really good job to win this race, I think for the second time in a row we lost it,” said Duval.

“I believe like in Mexico we had a shot for the win. It is difficult but I think that was a race to win, and we did everything right but I still don’t know what happened – we have to look at the problem from my second stint when I had to power cycle [reboot] the car.

“It was a massive loss and it is difficult to finish second when we’ve done the job we had to do. We had the pace, and the car was competitive. Once again we have to put everything together to win races.”

The #8 Audi won at Spa earlier this year, but that remains its only WEC victory of 2016 after an on-the-road win for the #7 was taken away for a technical infringement at Silverstone.

Jarvis added: “It is not good enough to just have a quick car, you also need reliability and I think for the first race we really dropped the ball in other areas as well.

“We only have ourselves to blame so we have to go back and really analyse what went wrong. To be honest we’re absolutely gutted. We did nearly everything right but at the same time, a lot wrong.”