"I was able to get a very good lap in at the very beginning, just before the first red flag," the Scot reported, "We knew that the potential to improve on that was minimal, so we decided to save ourselves and the tyres, especially for the start of the race. We have seen, in previous races, that the Audi R10 TDI is more competitive and can race better. Over six hours and 160-plus laps round this circuit that's the type of car that we will actually need."
Gené succeeded in bagging the third best time in the second Peugeot, still lapping more than a second quicker than Nicolas Minassian's pole-winning lap from 2007.
"I'm very disappointed," the Spaniard admitted, "My car oversteered, but we will do what we can to sort that out so that we can challenge for victory tomorrow…"
Completing the symmetry at the front of the grid, Mike Rockenfeller put the second R10 into fourth place on the grid despite having been obstructed on his fastest lap. Like McNish, the young German set his time early on, but had to overtake two other cars and was slowed by a third spinning in front of him in the chicane.
"On my fast lap, I had to overtake three cars and one of them spun directly in front of me," he confirmed, "Between this morning and qualifying, we made a lot of changes to the car and I first had to get used to them, but I think we're well set for the race. At a six-hour race, you don't need to start from pole in order to finish at the very front."
Fifth place fell to the Charouz-run Lola-Aston martin, which came in ahead of the two Pescarolo-Judds. Having topped the overall times, Michelin also claimed class poles in LMP2, with Jos Verstappen's Porsche RS Spyder heading the Lola Coupe of Andrea Belicchi, and GT1, courtesy of the Team Modena-run Aston Martin.
Ferrari again held sway in GT2, Gianmaria Bruni setting pole in the Virgo Motorsport
Ferrari, narrowly edging out the Porsche of Marc Lieb.
