quattroworld.com talks with Kristensen, Rockenfeller and McNish at the 2011 Le Mans 24 Hour

Posted: 09 Jun 2011 08:46 AM PDT

24 Le Mans, YouTube

Our good friends, Josh Decker and Mike Juergens of quattroworld.com have made the long trip over to Circuit de la Sarthe for the 79th running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Deep inside the Audi Terminal, these guys spent some time with 8-time Le Mans winner Tom Kristensen, last years Le Mans winner Mike Rockenfeller and 2-time winner Allan McNish. Video interviews after the jump.

Josh talks to Mr. Le Mans himself, Tom Kristensen.

Mike chats with Rocky about returning to Le Mans as winners and DTM racing.

Josh talks with Allan McNish about Audi enthusiast, karting and inspiration.

Video: Tom Kristensen and Mike Rockenfeller talk about Le Mans testing

Peugeot’s Sarrazin takes Le Mans 24 provisional pole

Posted: 08 Jun 2011 04:36 PM PDT

24 Le Mans, Audi R18 TDI

What we saw in the first practice session on Wednesday was an eye opener. The Audi-Peugeot diesel battle kicked off almost instantaneous. We thought it would be fast but 3:30′s were way off pace.

Tonights first qualifying session became more of the same, however not one bit boring. Audi’s Mike Rockenfeller would go out first and drop a 3:27.949 in the no1 Audi R18 TDI.

Andre Lotterer would snip .10 off of Rockenfeller’s time, nailing a 3:27.939 and take over top spot.

Numerous off’s would stall the full session with a big one coming from the no60 Aston Martin Gulf AMR and Romain Dumas in the Audi. The Aston Martin spun coming out of the Mulsanne chicane just as Dumas was heading through. With no yellows out, he nailed the AM t-bone style. With a good bit of damage to the front end of the R18 TDI, it was done for the night.

24 Le Mans, Romain Dumas, Aston Martin

With roughly 30 minutes to go, Stephane Sarrazin put in a flyer, nailing a 3:27.033. This was .906 better than that of Lotterer.

In GTE-Pro, it was a BMW vs Ferrari battle. Corvette and Porsche would be right behind. In the end, the no75 Prospeed Competition Porsche would sit 7th, no77 Felbermayr-Proton 8th, no80 Flying Lizard 11th and the no88 Felbermayr-Proton 13th.

Le Mans Flying Lizard

The no76 Matmut Porsche was retired in the first practice session and we hope to see it out for Thurdays qualifying.

We saw some great efforts in GTE-Am coming from the no81 Flying Lizard Porsche 911 GT3 RSR. Darren Law, Seth Neiman and our own Atlanta local Spencer Pumpelly sat in second place right behind the no70 Labre Competition Porsche. Proton Competition would pull up in 4th in their Porsche.

Thursday’s qualifying will kick off at 1PM ET. We will be updating live on Twitter and Facebook.