Acura steals pole position from Audi, Peugeot at 12 Hours of Sebring qualifying!
Tuesday's first official day of testing for the 12 Hours of Sebring endurance race saw the new Audi R15 dominate its long-time foes from Peugeot and two new entries from Acura in the fastest LMP1 class. Peugeot bounced back in Wednesday's testing session, however, with the quickest lap times of the day. We fully expected today's official qualifying session to be a knock down, drag out battle between the Europeans for pole position. No one saw this coming.
Scott Dixon of De Ferran Motorsports driving one of the new Acura ARX-02a cars set the fastest lap time in qualifying and has earned a spot ahead of the big boys on the starting grid. Dixon managed a 1:45.278 lap time that just barely edged out legendary Le Mans racer Tom Kristensen in a brand spanking new Audi R15 by 0.082 seconds. Following the Acura and Audi will be the #7 Peugeot 908 HDi, which qualified 0.184 seconds behind the fastest Acura with Christian Klein at the wheel. Our kudos go to Acura and the De Ferran Motorsports team for achieving such a big victory before the 12 Hours of Sebring even begins. Of course, the hard part starts on Saturday and lasts a lot longer than just one lap.
Gallery: LMP1 testing at 12 Hours of Sebring
[Source: Planet LeMans]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Javanese 5:41PM (3/19/2009)
I guess acura has been sand bagging the whole weekend.
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Israel Llamas 5:43PM (3/19/2009)
My Guess is that the one who is sand bagging is Audi, there's no way Audi is this slow. Just you wait.
Mike 5:48PM (3/19/2009)
Audi will hit the real race and obliterate the rest. Hate to tell you but Acura got played by the Euro teams.
Franz 6:06PM (3/19/2009)
@ Israel Llamas
"...there's no way Audi is this slow. Just you wait."
You call missing out on pole position by 0.082 seconds slow? By your logic, Peugeot must have a boat anchor on board because they're a tenth behind Audi. If I were gonna put money on it, I'd favor Audi to prevail in the long run but to hint that they're sandbagging after barely missing out on the pole is ludicrous. Acura and Scott Dixon got a flyer in. It doesn't mean that the Audis are sandbagging.
Raz 7:25PM (3/19/2009)
May be Audi was sandbagging but coincidentally being 0.082s slower? Well, what matters is the consistency of the lap times and reliability of the cars and crew. Peugeot was consistently faster than Audi, but still got beaten by reliability and tactics last year. My bet is still with Audi. Just a random thought, anyone find the Acura look like a wood picker or something. Especially with the blue and red stripes paint job.
Raz 7:37PM (3/19/2009)
Just found the old post... Don't know how much fuel they were running on but Audi pulled off a 1:43.596 on the first day, so they might really be sandbagging.
Cypher09 7:50PM (3/19/2009)
@Raz
Or the fact that the ambient temp. was higher and the drivers were saying up and down pit road that the track was greasy. But by all means don't let the facts get in the way of a good conspiracy.
Serge K. 7:52PM (3/19/2009)
Give some praise to the drive and not the name.
Tom Winch 8:15PM (3/19/2009)
Guys, it's qualifying. Nobody sandbags during qualifying. #1 on the grid with clean air and no traffic ahead is where you want to be.
superman211 8:51PM (3/19/2009)
I did not even know that Honda/Acura did LP anything.
Javanese 5:42PM (3/19/2009)
I guess acura had been sand bagging the whole weekend.
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BigMcLargeHuge 6:09PM (3/19/2009)
I have a sudden feeling of deja vu.
jaartsgroup 5:45PM (3/19/2009)
Smells like burn rice is the new biodiesel.
Congrats to Honda for burnin' it up.
This ought to be a great lemans season.
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rsfourever 5:47PM (3/19/2009)
hah. now watch audi and peugeot rip acura apart in the actual race! Initial positioning isn't THAT important in LeMans racing, not like in F1. so this won't really change anything...
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Trent 5:47PM (3/19/2009)
Wow, this ought to be a great race!
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jaartsgroup 5:55PM (3/19/2009)
Since AUDI has only tested these cars in the cold (and not setup for this track yet), they're probably at a disadvantage this week. Their Turbo diesels are probably taking a noticeable performance hit in the hot weather, and that combined with a few degrees of camber here and there are probably getting worked out as we speak.
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Mazda FTW! 5:58PM (3/19/2009)
Well they deserve kudos! But my question is: whats the point of an Acura program? The Acura lineup itself is pretty sports-less and anything but performance oriented.
*Note - This isin't really critisism but just a general question from soneone who used to love cars like the TL A-Spec and the RSX Type-S and the first gen TSX.
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Aki 6:04PM (3/19/2009)
They're *supposedly* trying to become more competitive performance-wise for their regular cars, but who knows. Dunno why they don't have SH-AWD available across all their line-up. They finally offered it on the TL, at least.
Typesbad 8:33PM (3/19/2009)
Acura pretty much has SH-AWD across their entire line-up. The TSX is the only model where it isn't available.
Lee 6:01PM (3/19/2009)
That's probable one of the better looking Acuras's on the road today too.
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