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From YourSITE.com Motorsport News
Going into the Wednesday and Thursday qualifying sessions, Audi looked strong, but so did the competition. On Wednesday night Kristensen may have done only three laps, but Audi’s Frank Biela was clearly out to set down times by nailing a 3:30.287 (faster than the previous year’s pole) just twenty five minutes into the session. Eight minutes later, he’d be the first to go sub 3:30 with a 3:28.301. Audi’s Alexandre Premat would also go under 3:30 before the first of the night’s red flags was dropped and the course was cleared. The reason for the flag was due to catastrophic accident by the #53 JLOC Lamborghini. With Marco Appicella at the wheel, the car left the track at the Playstation chicane on the Mulsanne straight.
While track attendants and medics dealt with the Lamborghini, the rest of the field returned to pit lane. Forty minutes later and still under a red flag, those cars sat waiting on their racing slicks to return to the track as a torrential downpour began to fall over the circuit. Mechanics scrambled to push the cars back to their respective garages to swap on wet weather tires. Eventually, the green flag finally fell with only seven minutes left in the session, all three Audi R10s returned to the track, though the Peugeots remained in their garages to prep for the second session. When the session was extended another twelve minutes, Peugeot opted to log a few more laps, sending the #8 car out with Stephane Sarrazin at the wheel for the last five minutes.
With the JLOC Lamborghini done for the night and likely done for the race, the first session wasn’t kind to the tertiary Audi brand group entrants. The second session would include yet another red flag when a report came in of an LM P1 wreck. At first thought to be an R10, then the Swiss Spirit Audi-powered Lola, the final word came across of simply a retirement by the Swiss Spirit car due to electrical issues twenty three minutes into the session. When the green flag again fell seven minutes later, the Peugeots and the Audis began a slugfest to knock each other off of the provisional pole.
First came Peugeot’s Sarrazin – 3.27.029. Then came McNish – 3:27.017, improving that with a 3:26.916 shortly thereafter. The Scot showed he was brutally fast, though flying past the pits for that last blistering time took its cost as his #2 Audi R10 slowed substantially toward the end of his next time round, coasting home as he ran out of fuel. As McNish road his momentum back to the garage, Peugeot’s Sarrazin robbed Audi of their evening’s bragging rights, nailing down a 3:26.344 on the last lap of the evening.
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