WEC – Albuquerque ready to take on the challenge with Audi at Spa

Filipe Albuquerque will contest his first LMP1 race next weekend at the wheel of the No. 18 Audi R3 e-tron quattro which he will share with Marco Bonanomi and Oliver Jarvis. The former pilot of DTM is delighted to be part of this crew having won the Italian GT Championship in 2010 with the Italian and the GT category of the 24 Hours of Daytona last year with the Briton. “We agree well on the settings. We have the same feelings as drivers and we are working together to be victorious at Le Mans (June 14 and 15). Our relationships are excellent”, assures the Portuguese.

The rookie who also competes in theELMS on a Zytek Z11SN entered by Jota Sport (retired at Silverstone) had to take his bearings on the Audi R18 e-tron quattro, much more complex than his old RS 5 DTM. “I started by learning the 37 cockpit buttons and their functions, which is much more than a DTM cockpit”, confirms the Portuguese. “We work with many more engineers because the R18 e-tron quattro is very complex. Audi prepared me admirably for this task. The TDI engine is very quiet and the noise level is much lower with a diesel. »

But the main difficulty for Filipe Albuquerque will be to navigate traffic in the middle of a peloton made up of different categories. If the Portuguese has already participated in endurance events, the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps will only be his first race at the wheel of an LMP1. “The hybrid part and its powerful torque really helps us with overtaking. It's true that the DTM only has one category, but I already won the GT category at the 24 Hours of Daytona with Audi and we were driving a GT among the prototypes. THE WEC includes four categories and you can almost never have a clear turn. This time we will be in the fastest category of the peloton and this will require us to be constantly on guard by adjusting our trajectory in front of the slower cars that we will have to avoid. »

Discover the analysis of the 6 Hours of Silverstone carried out by our special correspondents in issue 1957 of AUTOhebdo, available now in digital version on all platforms and on newsstands.