By Steven English Thursday, June 12th 2008, 22:27 GMT
Stephane Sarrazin, No.8 Peugeot 908 HDiPeugeot rounded off two dominant days of qualifying by securing the first three places on the grid for the trio of 908 HDis.
Stephane Sarrazin's 3:18.513 lap from Wednesday proved good enough to secure pole position for the No. 8 car. Franck Montagny and Nicolas Minassian set the quickest times in the No. 9 and No. 7 cars respectively.
"I don't know how fast this car can go, but that lap was very close to the limit," said Sarrazin. "It was not easy, when you are pushing like that you have to be precise and I did a very good lap without any mistakes.
"But the car felt amazing and it has a really good balance so I'm very confident for the race. I hope that we can still be faster than the three Audis."
Peugeot's six second advantage over Audi remained as nobody was able to better Allan McNish's 3:23.847 from earlier this evening.
The No. 3 Audi of Mike Rockenfeller, Alex Premat and Lucas Luhr will start the race fifth, ahead of the Lola Aston Martin, which managed to break into the top six.
Stefan Mucke set a string of exceptional laps early in the final qualifying session and knocked the No. 1 Audi down to seventh.
Both Frank Biela and Marco Werner pulled out all the stops to regain the place right at the end of qualifying. Both set laps quicker than any other for the car throughout the two days, but Werner missed out on sixth spot by just a tenth of a second.
The factory Dome also took seconds off its best time and Daisuke Ito earned the Japanese manufacturer eighth place on the grid with a 3:26.928.
The No. 21 Epsilon Euskadi was relieved to be granted more dry running after its troubles yesterday and Jean-Marc Gounon lifted the car to 15th overall with a best time over a second quicker than the sister Epsilon.
The four-minute barrier was smashed, as predicted, in the GT2 class. Wolf Henzler, in the No.77 Felbermayr Porsche, posted a 3:59.072 before Patrick Long set a stunning 3:58.152 in the IMSA Porsche.
But Rob Bell proved that Ferrari too could manage a sub four-minute lap and produced a 3:59.820 in the No. 96 Virgo 430.
