Audi dominated prerace testing at Sebring, topping all four sessions in the build up to opening round of the inaugural FIA World Endurance Championship and American Le Mans Series.
The German manufacturer made good on its tag as heavy favorite – bestowed upon it following Peugeot's last-minute withdrawal from the championship – by taking the top three in all but one session, when the Muscle Milk HPD managed to break into third.
The No. 2 R18 shared by Allan McNish, Tom Kristensen and Rinaldo Capello set the overall best time, a 1m47.187s, in the afternoon session on Monday. While the No.1 and No. 3 R18s were able to get within 1.2sec of that benchmark, the next nearest challenger – Lucas Luhr, Klaus Graf and Simon Pagenaud's HPD – was a further 1.4sec down the road.
The second ALMS LMP1 car, the Dyson Racing Lola, was fifth fastest, just ahead of Nick Leventis, Danny Watts and Jonny Kane in the No. 21 Strakka HPD, which steps up the P1 ranks this year following two successful seasons in P2.
In LMP2, the pace was set by the Level 5 Motorsports HPD of Scott Tucker, Luis Diaz and Ryan Hunter-Reay. A 1m52.055s put the trio more than one second clear of the rest of the field.
The fastest WEC LMP2 car was the preseason favouite No. 49 Pecom ORECA-Nissan, which set a 1m53.527 on the final afternoon of the test.
In GTE Pro, WEC and ALMS entries shared the honors over the four sessions, with the WEC No.59 Luxury Racing Ferrari 458 of Frederic Makowiecki, Jaime Melo and Jean-Karl Vernay setting the outright best time, a 2m00.830s.
The No. 51 AF Corseand No.77 Felbermayr Porsche 911 were among its chief rivals in the WEC entries, while in ALMS the two RLL BMW M3s were among the main pacesetters.
The No. 58 Luxury Racing Ferrari 458 was the fastest of the GTE Am entries.
After a break on Wednesday, there will be three practice sessions on Thursday, including a mandatory night session, before a final practice and then qualifying on Friday afternoon. The Mobil1 Twelve Hours of Sebring then commences at 10:30 a.m. ET on Saturday.