Audi to analyse Nurburgring struggle

Mercedes locked out the podium positions at a track where Audi had been expected to shine.

The Ingolstadt-based marque dominated at the same track last year, but on Sunday the fastest race lap for an Audi driver was half a second adrift of race winner Bruno Spengler's pace.

"Our cars did not have the performance we expected, so we have to look into that and understand where the problem comes from," said Audi's head of motorsport Wolfgang Ullrich.

"Although we arrived here with great expectations, during the course of the race we saw that none of our cars even come close to having the kind of performance we'd been expecting."

Although the majority of the Audi drivers struggled in qualifying as well, the squad was upbeat heading into the race after Mattias Ekstrom took pole by four tenths of a second.

However, Ullrich suspects that the Swede's performance covered up the team's problems.

"Maybe it was a sign that we only had one car at the front [of the grid]," he added. "We need to go away and work on it.

"There are still 60 points to be awarded in the championship. Now we've got to look ahead, do a thorough job of working on the issues and put ourselves back in a position of being capable of winning at Zandvoort."

Ekstrom is the highest-placed Audi driver in the championship, currently sitting in fifth position. He is 19 points adrift of Spengler.