Audis steal march on Peugeots in qualifying for Le Mans 24-hours race

Audi locked out the front row of the grid in qualifying for the Le Mans 24-hours race at the Le Sarthe circuit, in a thrilling final session that concluded at midnight on Thursday. The race is the third round and centrepiece of the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup, a competition created by the race organisers, the Automobile Club l'Ouest, that last week was granted full world championship status for 2012. Audi, represented by three factory cars, has not won the top two spots on the grid at Le Mans since 2006, the year its main rival, Peugeot, returned to the sport. The two diesel-powered heavyweights of the prototype class, which have been competing for victory since then, slugged it out over three qualifying sessions stretching from Wednesday into late Thursday night. Wednesday's session, generally used as a shake-down for the cars and to test fuel consumption and tyre wear in race-length stints, saw Audi dominate until Peugeot sent out a Le Mans qualifying specialist, Stéphane Sarrazin, who headed the time sheets with a lap of 3 minutes and 27.033 seconds. However, the real bids for pole were not expected until Thursday. This is only the second competitive race for Audi's R18, a closed-cockpit prototype that had previously run in the second round of the Intercontinental Le Mans cup, at Spa in May, where it took third, fourth and fifth positions. Victory there belonged to Peugeot, running its new 908 which, although less of a design-departure than the Audi – the German marque had previously run open-cockpit cars – is also on a learning curve here, with Le Mans marking its third competitive outing. Victory at La Sarthe is less dependent on a front-row position than at almost any other motor race in the world. Although the competition is now so competitive that it runs as a 24-hour sprint rather than the conservative, paced trek to the finish that is often perceived, starting from the front remains less important than consistent race pace, fast and efficient pit stops and clever strategy. However, Peugeot has always liked to hold pole-honour at its home race in the gap between Thursday qualifying and the start of the race on Saturday (at 2pm UK time) and as much as many teams play it down, the sponsors and manufacturers enjoy the bragging rights the position brings. While Audi has been traditionally cagey about going for pole – particularly so in recent years – when the 908 consistently proved faster in qualifying and remained so as the third session began, it became clear that the Germans felt they had a car that could match the Peugeot over one hot lap. Peugeot dominated most of the session, with Sarazin and Marc Gené swapping top spot, as most teams began improving on the previous day's times, as the track rubbered in. Then, as the final minutes approached, Marcel Fässler in the No2 Audi put in blistering lap to take provisional pole in 3.25.961. It seemed a statement of intent and the celebrations in the Audi garage suggested that although qualifying was unimportant to the overall race, there was no little pleasure taken in breaking Peugeot's qualifying domination. It left the final night session of two hours to go, with cooling air expected to bring even faster times and a shoot-out anticipated in the final quarter. Britain's Anthony Davidson looked to set an early marker in the No7 Peugeot but spun, leaving Romain Dumas, in the No1 Audi, to take the new top spot. As the laps settled down, again gathering valuable information on night-time fuel consumption, the session was red-flagged. A steady pace followed the restart, before the Frenchman Benoît Tréluyer launched a mighty lap, making the most of a lack of traffic, to take pole with a time of 3.25.738. Peugeot's Simon Pagenaud kept pushing until the session was complete but could not better Tréluyer's time, while Audi's eight-times Le Mans winner, Tom Kristensen, on a very quick lap in the final seconds, pushed just too hard and finished in the barrier at Tetre Rouge. That left Audi one and two, Peugeot three and four, the Audi of Britain's Allan McNish fifth and Davidson's Peugeot in sixth. The gap between Audi and Peugot is tiny – certainly the two have not been so evenly-matched in qualifying for some time. Over 24 hours, of course, with a full 56 cars on the grid, other factors will come into play but if the two rivals remain reliable and on-track it could make for a classic race. If reliability does play a part – and these are very new cars – there will be no shortage of fast cars to take up the slack. Expect Oreca, this year's Serbing 12-hours winner, in an older iteration of the Peugeot 908, to run quickly and reliably. Oreca qualified in seventh place. Of the petrol-powered cars, the Rebellion Lola took the honours with eighth on the grid. There will be a strong challenge too from the restarted Pescarolo team, a very good bet to be running at the end. Aston Martin's prototype, the AMR One, struggled as it has all season, after a very short build time. It qualified 22nd and 25th and the team will view any long run or finish as progress. Aston Martin, which has had great success at La Sarthe in the past, sees this year's race as part of a three-year development programme. In the lower classes, the Signatech Nissan took the LMP2 pole and the No55 factory BMW took the honours in a fiercely competitive GTE Pro class. In GTE Am, the No 42 Ferrari 439 of AF Corse led the way. Follow Giles Richards on Twitter: @giles_richards