Webber: Porsche’s plan in Mexico is ‘stop Audi winning’

Speaking in the pre-event press conference, reigning world champion Webber acknowledged the pace of the Audis at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez so far, after they were 1-2 in practice.

“They were quick, but they were quick in Nurburgring,” said Webber. “We still managed to find a way to beat them there, and that’s the plan here. We’re not going to hand any victories to anyone.

“Audi are obviously looking to start getting some victories going, and we want to try and stop that for as long as possible. I think it’ll be a great race on Saturday.”

The intensity between Porsche and Audi kicked off early, when Porsche’s Romain Dumas and Audi’s Lucas di Grassi got into an on-track battle in the first free practice session.

“I think Lucas thought practice was the race today with Romain, he was a little bit wild,” said Webber, with di Grassi sat right next to him.

“We’re building up nicely and we’ll be ready for the race. We’re looking forward to the battle, it’s going to be a good one.”

Di Grassi answers back

Spa winner di Grassi said that the incident with Dumas was easily explained.

“We’re pushing very hard,” said di Grassi. “Like [Mark] described, the only time I had new tyres on the car I had Romain fighting me on the track, so I was fighting back!

“We are trying to optimise the car, and Mexico is very special because of the cooling, you have less air exchanging heat in the radiators, intercoolers and brake discs, so you have a lot of parts specially made for Mexico only.

“Audi has done a fantastic job at home to make sure the car is in perfect shape for here, and we need to get the use of this in the race.”