Allan McNish - Le Mans 24 Hours Qualifying

Allan McNish claimed a provisional front row start position for the 75 th Le Mans 24 Hours in the opening official qualifying session last night (WED) – the Scotsman having been denied the fastest time in the dying seconds.

McNish, 37, looked set for provisional pole in his diesel-powered Audi R10 TDI until Frenchman Stephane Sarrazin (Peugeot) snatched the fastest time in the opening time trials for the 54-car field.

The Scotsman’s 3min 26.916secs, an average speed of 147.34mph around the 8.47-mile circuit comprising of closed public roads, was 0.572-seconds slower than the Sarrazin.

“Qualifying was difficult because of the red flag stoppages and weather, so it all came down to the last 10 minutes or so when times began to fall after track conditions allowed us to bolt on ‘slick’ dry weather tyres”, reflected McNish.

“I had two reasonable laps but encountered some traffic in the last chicane on my second ‘hot’ lap which was frustrating having worked hard for over eight miles only to see time slipping away in the last tenth of a mile.

“However, I don’t believe it cost me over half a second which is how much faster the Peugeot went right at the very end.”

1998 Le Mans winner McNish shares his V12 diesel-engined Audi with regular American Le Mans Series team-mate Dindo Capello (I) plus Tom Kristensen (Den), the latter passed fit earlier this week to race at Le Mans after an accident in a German Touring Car Masters (DTM) race in April. “Pole” last year went to Capello with a 3:30.466secs although this year’s circuit is approximately 21 metres (23yds) shorter than last year.

The two similar “works” Audi R10 TDI sports-prototypes of 2006 Le Mans winners Frank Biela (D)/Emanuele Pirro (I)/Marco Werner (D) plus Mike Rockenfeller (D)/Lucas Luhr (D)/Alexandre Prémat (F) provisionally qualified fourth (3:28.301) and fifth (3:29.736) fastest respectively.

Forty seven minutes were lost during the four-hour test, split in to two, two-hour sessions with a one hour interval, when the session was red-flagged after Marco Apicella crashed his GT1 Lamborghini at the first chicane (at 20:06hr). As the track was opened again shortly before 21:00hr, light rain quickly became heavy rain on part of the circuit while organisers extended the first part of the session by 15mins.

Damp patches remained until the final 20-minutes of the second part of last night’s time trials which then saw a slick-shod, “dry weather” tyred Sarrazin snatch the fastest time from the McNish Audi who had gone fastest with three minutes remaining also on “slicks”.

A further four hour qualifying session for the 54-cars takes place tonight (THURS), 7-9pm and 10-12 midnight for final grid positions for the race which begins at 3pm on Saturday.