The Audi R18 long tail was convincing at the 6 Hours of Spa

Audi created a surprise by announcing before the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps that it would enter a third R18 e-tron quattro with an extended rear part. The Ingolstadt manufacturer has chosen to entrust this new version to Lucas di Grassi, Marc Gené and Oliver Jarvis with the aim of comparing the two versions with the aim of better preparing the 24 Hours of Le Mans by collecting more data. Although the R18 n°3 was not suited to the winding portions of the Belgian Ardennes circuit, the latter still managed to take the last step of the podium ahead of the Toyota n ° 8 of Buemi-Davidson-Sarrazin, the n°7 of Stone-Nakajima-Wurz having given up.

The drivers of the R18 long tail were the first to be impressed by the performance developed by their LMP1. “It was clear we weren’t able to keep up with our teammates.”, recognizes Marc Gené. “But the team learned a lot and we’re happy we were able to help them. “We had a different concept car compared to the other two which had more downforce,” underlines Lucas di Grassi for his part. “At the finish, we managed to get on the podium and this result slightly exceeded our expectations. » The No. 3 Audi had proven that it remained competitive on the Spa-Francorchamps track since it was placed on the first row in front of the No. 2 of Kristensen-McNish-Duval. “Our race went as planned. We created a surprise during qualifying. We knew this event was going to be tough for us because the tires were deteriorating further. Third place is the best result we could have hoped for,” concludes Oliver Jarvis.

Discover the analysis of the 6 Hours of Spa carried out by our special correspondents in the next issue of AUTOhebdo, n°1908, exceptionally available from tomorrow in digital version on all platforms, and from Tuesday on newsstands.