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Practice report

Austin WEC: Audi stays on top in COTA night practice

Audi remained at the top of the FIA World Endurance Championship practice times as night descended at Austin’s Circuit of the Americas.

#8 Audi Sport Team Joest Audi R18: Lucas di Grassi, Loic Duval, Oliver Jarvis

#8 Audi Sport Team Joest Audi R18: Lucas di Grassi, Loic Duval, Oliver Jarvis

Audi Communications Motorsport

#8 Audi Sport Team Joest Audi R18: Lucas di Grassi, Loic Duval, Oliver Jarvis
#8 Audi Sport Team Joest Audi R18: Lucas di Grassi, Loic Duval, Oliver Jarvis
#7 Audi Sport Team Joest Audi R18: Marcel Fassler, Andre Lotterer, Benoit Tréluyer
#7 Audi Sport Team Joest Audi R18: Marcel Fassler, Andre Lotterer, Benoit Tréluyer
#8 Audi Sport Team Joest Audi R18: Lucas di Grassi, Loic Duval, Oliver Jarvis

In far cooler evening conditions – in which the majority of Saturday’s 6 Hours of COTA will be run – compared to the heat of the Texas afternoon of FP1, times tumbled by over 1.2s.

Andre Lotterer set the early pace in the #7 Audi R18 with a 1m47.330s, which was fractionally trumped by Loic Duval in the #8 sister car on 1m47.235s – just under a tenth faster.

Benoit Treluyer suffered a problem in the #7 car, which toured slowly back to the pits after slowing drastically on the back straight. That stranded the car in the pits for the rest of the session.

It was a quiet session from Porsche, who didn’t seem interested in chasing any headline laptimes. The #1 car was almost a quarter of a second off the Audis’ pace, with the #2 not far behind.

Toyota were fifth and sixth again, the #5 ahead of the #6 after a late quick lap from Sebastien Buemi which got to within 0.9s of the fastest time overall.

In the LMP1-L class, the ByKolles CLM was just 0.3s quicker than the Rebellion.

In LMP2, the #36 Signatech Alpine of Gustavo Menezes, Nicolas Lapierre and Stephane Richelmi led the way from the #43 Mexico City-winning RGR Sport by Morand Ligier. The usual class pacesetter, the #26 G-Drive Oreca, was third.

Ford headed GTE Pro on home turf once more, the #66 GT of Olivier Pla/Stefan Mucke heading the #95 Aston and the #67 Ford.

In GTE Am, the #98 Aston of Paul Dalla Lana, Pedro Lamy and Mathias Lauda dominated.

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