Le Mans 24 Hours, First Qualifying Session

And away we go - 2 hours into full darkness from 10pm until midnight with a fully dry track and cool conditions - Perfect for the field to find real pace.

One car that won't be out this evening is the #76 IMSA Performance Porsche which is on its way back to the team's Rouen workshop - the team plan for the car to be back here tomorrow afternoon.

And immediately Audi put down a real marker - Rockenfeller with a 3:27.949 in the #1 Audi - McNish with a 3:29.0 and Lotterer a 3:30.4 the first throw of the dice.

Wurz though responds immediately, fastest sectors of all in 1 and 2 but baulked in the final sector to come around 3rd fastest as McNish improves  to a 3:28.3 to consolidate second. Lotterer meanwhile makes a very early tyre change.

In GTE Pro Beretta and Melo are both immediately under 4 minutes - The #73 Vette leading the way with a 3:59.633 - Magnussen though immediately shades it for provisional pole in the #74 car - 3:59.519.

LMP2 hasn't really got going yet - Premat in the #48 Oreca Oreca Nissan leads the pack with a 3:44.756 ahead of Erdos for RML with a 3:47.308.

Giroix meanwhile leads GTE Am - 4:04.826 in the Gulf AMR Middle East Vantage. 

Bruni and Farfus leapfrog the Vettes - The #51 Ferrari round in 3:58.989, 4 tenths quicker than the #55 BMW

Wurz improves - into the 3:28s but still third fastest - Bourdais is into the 3:29s and fourth.

Tom Kimber Smith pops up in LMP2 provisional pole for Greaves Motorsport - 3: 43.814 for the Englishman in the Zytek Nissan but he pits with front end damage.

Fellow Brit Andy Priaulx grabs the advantage in GTE Pro - 3:58.426.

And that was the first 20 minutes!

There's damage too for the #007 Aston Martin, it's lost the left front wing - Klien pits.

Lotterer grabs provisional pole - 3:27.939 is one hundredth of a second faster than Rocky's earlier mark.

Belloc grabs the GTE Am advantage - 4:03.918.

The #009 AMR One stops onn the Mulsanne Straight but rejoins after about a ten minute pause - It pits immediately - Fernandez's body language seems to indicate a problem with porpoising.

Premat takes advantage of the Greaves Motorsport delay and regrabs LMP2 pole - 3:43.654.

The #2 Audi has a nose change from a single plane setup to dual planes - the #1 car meanwhile goes to a single plane set-up with larger planes - Have we seen the end of a first phase of low downforce pole runs?

Kristensen is aboard the #3 Audi now, Fassler in #2 and Bernhard in #1.

The Kronos Lola Aston has a broken driveshaft.

Jonny Kane pops up third fastest in LMP2 for Strakka and follows up next time around with a 3:43.451 good enough to claim provisional pole by a fair margin - That was until Franck Mailleux completed his next tlap, provisional pole now with the #26 Signatech Oreca Nissan at 3:43.124.

Kane though responds too, he retakes the advantage with another substantial improvement - 3:42.615.

Mike Wainwright has a rather unruly entrance to the pitlane but brings it back safely.

45 minutes gone.

#007 is wheeled back out onto the apron.

The Norma spins in the Ford Chicane - then Philippe Haezebrouck drives the car intoi the gravel trap as he attempts to rejoin - The Marshals (bless them and all their works) coax the car back on track as a slow running #83 JMB Ferrari pits.

RED FLAG - Sizeable impact between the seemingly near stationary #60 Aston Vantage and the #1 Audi R18.

Dumas was taking his normal line through the corner and it seemed the Aston was either in the midst of an off or a recovery from one - The Auhappened but it seems the Aston hit the Aston on the right hand side in the door area - Goethe in the Aston, Dumas in the Audi - Nothing to indicate at present that either are anything other than OK. 

The session restarts at 11pm

Marshall Pruett spots that the Audis are running with their infra red tyre temperature sensors active - a rareity indeed in qualifying.  More data required chez Joest?

Was this a case of an 'A' pillar blind spot  - From the short video we've seen Dumas seemed surprised to find the Aston on his line.

The Greaves Zytek is back out on track - Olivier Lombard at the wheel.

The CRS car meanwhile has been back out on track after its practice shunt.

Loic Duval improves in the Oreca Peugeot but is still 7th.

Romain Dumas reports that there were no yellow flags at Mulsanne Corner.

Christophe Bouchut joins in the fun in the #33 Level 5 Lola HPD after a lengthy repair to a self inflicted sliced fuel cell, the team believe it happened at the Snetterton test but wasn't discovered until the tank was filled here.

As one LMP2 Lola joins the other pits after a very slow in lap - the #39 Pecom car in trouble?  Nope it was a spurious warning from an oil pressure sensor - The delayed Kronos Lola Aston is going back out after changing their errant driveshaft.

The Robertson Racing squad are investigating a persistent misfire - David Robertson reports that the team are changing the engine.

Sarrazin grabs provisional pole - 3:27.033 for the #8 Peugeot is almost a full second faster than the Audis behind.

We have 31 minutes of the session remaining.

The JMB Ferrari rejoins after a lengthy sojourn in the pits (transmission) but is immediately smoking heavily.

Ralph Meichtry puts the Race Performance Oreca up into fifth in LMP2 with a 3:44.294.

Drama for Bryce Miller as the #88 Felbermayer Porsche is stationary at Mulsanne Corner, ,the car looking as if it has suffered a fire at the rear - Bryce is out of the car.

The Gulf Aston meanwhile has made it back to Parc Ferme with what, visually at least, seems to be remarkably limited damage.

The Larbre Vette has stopped at the exit of the Porsche Curves.

Spencer Pumpelly puts the #81 Flying Lizards Porsche up to second in GTE Am.

Pla improves time and position but then the red flags are out and its disaster for Strakka, Nick Leventis sitting in a very heavily damaged #42 HPD after Turn One before the Dunlop Bridge - Nick seems OK and is talking (and apologising profusely) on the radio but is quite rightly being told to wait for an extraction crew - It looks as if the car spun out of Turn One and hit the tyre barrier on the outside backwards.  That will be the end of tonight's proceedings - Hopefully the HPD is repairable.

Peugeot then finish the night on provisional pole for the #8 car and Stephane Sarrazin with the three R18s next up.

Strakka have a very bittersweet end of the session - provisional pole for the #42 HPD but we'll wait and see what the team say about the state of the car. The three Nissan engined cars are in line astern behind.

GTE Pro is currently in the hands of BMW, the 56 car heads the #51 AF Corse ferrari with the second BMW and the #74 Vette next up.

GTE Am is a Porsche 1,2 - Larbre from Flying Lizards withthe Gulf Aston and the #63 Porsche next up.

There's plenty of opportunity tomorrow for all of that to change - All four classes are nicely balanced - with several teams looking capableof improving - and several others with plenty of work to do tonight and tomorrow.