The AudI R10 TDI, Le Mans Series team and drivers defending champion, thanks to Mike Rockenfeller and Alexandre Prémat, will be back on the European tracks in 2009. As you know, Team Kolles will field two cars in the Championship and in the 24 Hours of Le Mans as well. As Team Kolles will start racing in the Le Mans Seies this coming weekend at Barcelona, Joachim Matheis, Team Kolles Team Manager, has kindly agreed to answer a few questions before this first event

Joachim, the Barcelona line-up has already been announced. Will it be the same for the 24 Hours of Le Mans?

The drivers will be Christijan Albers, Christian Bakkerud and Narain Karthikeyan. On the other car we will have Michael Krumm, Andy Meyrick and Charles Zwolsman. If this will also be the driver line up for Le Mans, we don’t know yet, but this is how we start into the LMS season in Barcelona.

Could you say some words about the technical staff?

Technical staff is Jacky Eeckelaert and Jos Clas. Each of them will run one car as race engineer. I am sure you know of both of them. Jacky was engineer of Sauber F1 and Honda F1 and Jos is coming from F3 and DTM. As for me, I am Joachim Matheis, the Team Manager and I was working for the Audi Factory team from the beginning of their Le Mans project since 1999 until 2008, including the Bentley Le Mans project in 2003.

How many chassis does Team Kolles own ?

Team Kolles owns two complete cars and spare chassis are available if necessary.

Has the car been fully upgraded to the 2009 regs by Audi Motorsport only, by Team Kolles alone, or by Team Kolles and Audi altogether?

Audi Sport did the upgrade to 2009 regulations and Team Kolles did the testing with the new parts.

Do you think that these 2009 regs could be a problem for the R10s?

No, we expect no problems after the successful tests.

As you have been involved in the Le Mans projects, you perfectly know the difficulties of this race, and however you have chosen many Le Mans rookies, Michael Krumm being the only one who has already raced at Le Mans. So, even if your drivers have some good records and if Christjan Albers has raced last year with the R10, don’t you think it could be a problem for Le Mans?

We have six professional race car driver, two with sports car experience, two with formula one experience. It is a very good driver line up and a very good mixture of young and experienced drivers. All are physically top fit. Everybody is doing his own preparation for Le Mans. We will have a long-distance test between Barcelona and Spa in preparation for Le Mans 24.

Could you have a special support from Audi Motorsport, such as mechanics, engineers…?

Audi Sport supports the engine, which also happened with all customer R8 in the past. All the other team members are from Team Kolles.

As for Barcelona, do you consider this first Le Mans Series event for the team as a learning race, or has the team high expectations and do you think you could win in Spain? What is the main aim for Team Kolles this year : the Le Mans Series title, a good result at Le Mans?

Barcelona is not a test race for us. Generally we have to see how the balance between the diesel and the other cars is. We expect to be very competitive in the LMS as well as in Le Mans. As we know from the last few years, not always the quickest car wins in Le Mans.

Will you come at Le Mans by the end of April for the Le Mans Series testing?

Our plan is not to be in Le Mans for the test on the Bugatti circuit.

Could you give us an idea of the colour scheme of the Team Kolles Audis?

You will see the cars in Barcelona in a dark grey with a very bright red. The cars look very good.

We do thank warmly Joachim Matheis for his kindness.

Claude Foubert