Boullion Tops Warm-Up

Boullion guided the lead Pescarolo Sport entry that he shares with pole setter Emmanuel Collard and Erik Comas around the 8.45-mile circuit in a best lap of 3m37.042s in the 45-minute session.

While the warm-up is traditionally a chance to check that all is working as it should after a day of installing new mechanical parts for the race ahead, the 4.017 second advantage the blue, white and green car enjoyed over the next fastest car, the JJ Lehto/Tom Kristensen/Marco Werner Champion Racing Audi R8 emphasised the performance margin between the two cars.

The second Champion Racing Audi of Frank Biela, Allan McNish and Emanuele Pirro was third fastest, lapping in 3m41.250s, with the other Pescarolo of Soheil Ayari, Eric Helary and reigning World Rally Champion Sebastien Loeb fourth in 3m41.967s.

The Creation Autosportif DBA continued to prove that it's right in the mix by being fifth fastest with a lap of 3m42.338s, showing that Jamie Campbell-Walter, Nicolas Minassian and former Le Mans winner Andy Wallace are not to be discounted.

Intersport Racing fielded the fastest of the LMP2 runners, with the Lola it is running for Gregor Fisken, Liz Halliday and Sam Hancock being 11th fastest overall, lapping in 4m49.477s, outrunning the Kruse Motorsport Courage by just over a second.

Aston Martin put another over Chevrolet by being fastest in GT1, with the David Brabham/Stephane Sarrazin/Darren Turner DBR9 outpacing the Ron Fellows/Johnny O'Connell/Max Papis Corvette C6.R by 0.85s, leaving even the sport's insiders unsure as to what pace the C6-Rs will be able to run in the race, with many still convinced that they're sandbagging.

Alex Job Racing, the team that claimed pole position for the GT2 class, was again fastest in class, with Marc Lieb setting a lap of 4m08.050s in the 911 GT3-RSR that he shares with Leo Hindery and Mike Rockenfeller.

The team that was most pleased simply to be out there at all was G-Force Racing which had worked flat-out for almost two days to rebuild its LMP2 Courage after Frank Hahn crashed it in qualifying when the suspension collapsed. It covered but a handful of laps, but will at least be ready for the race.

So, the teams have three hours to finish preparing their cars for the race before they have to push them out onto the grid and position them in "ear of corn" style for the notoriously lengthy pre-amble to the race, with the drivers of each of the 49 cars being presented to the public from 13:30.