Kristensen unfazed by no dry running
Eight-time Le Mans winner Tom Kristensen says he is not worried by having almost no dry running prior to qualifying in the Audi R15
It is the new car's first time at Le Mans and, with no test day and a rain-affected six-hour practice session on Wednesday evening, it is yet to turn a wheel on the fully dry Le Mans circuit heading into this evening's qualifying sessions.
But Kristensen says the team is not concerned and instead focused on preparing the car as well as possible in mixed conditions.
"You can say ideally you want six hours of dry to try to optimise and make the car perfect for dry conditions, then when it rains you see how that car behaves in the wet. But we were backtracking, yesterday we were trying different things in the wet to put it together to see what we think. We worked on what helped in the wet to make it help in the dry also.
"At Le Mans you need to cover yourself. You need a car that can run 90 per cent perfect in the dry, then when the rain arrives it should not be undriveable. But you cannot make it a wet car, because then it will be very slow in the dry. You need to have a hint of a compromise depending on how much wet you think there will be."
Kristensen added that Audi is working on its performance in relation to the Peugeots, but admits that French manufacturer is also unlikely to have shown its true potential yet.
"We know we are slower on the straight than the Peugeot but we have an idea about how much slower we want to be, so we are working on things like that. At the same time, I'm sure they don't want us to know exactly what speed they intend to go through the race, so we have to analyse things like that as well."
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