Le Mans 24 Hours - Thursday Qualifying Session 2
22:00 - Midnight

The final qualifying session gets underway with the now seemingly traditional moment from an Oreca Courage, Olivier Panis going straight on at Arnage, followed shortly afterwards by Jonny Kane in the #45 Embassy WF01 doing much the same thing.

Improvements galore in the early moments witht he Corvette Racing duo both improving Magnussen down to a 3:47.668, Gavin just under a second behind with Bouchut improving too but still third.

The petrol fuelled battle is now on with a vengeance - Ito posts a 3:26.928 in the #11 Dome, Mucke a 3:27 in the Lola Aston, 7th and 8th overall respectively.

GT2 has a new leader, Wolf Henzler under 4 minutes - 3:59.072 in the #77 Felbermayr Proton car.

The #82 Risi Ferrari is in driveshaft trouble, the car in the pit garage, its not been their night so far.

Stefan Mucke gets in amongst the Audis, 6th overall in the #10 Lola Aston Martin a 3:25.158

The #35 Pescarolo is having an engine change.

GT2 pole changes hands again Pat "We aren't going for it tonight" Long posting a 3:58.152.

Rob Bell meanwhile posts a 4:00.102 for third in GT2, in amongst the Porsches, albeit 4 thousandths ahead of the Lizards time.

The #009 Aston Martin, Antonio Garcia at the wheel, is moving up the order, up to third with a 3:48.994, half a second shy of Gavin ahead.  Frentzen moves up to fourth and for the fisrst time the factory four are together at the top of the GT1 timesheet

Both Epsilons improve, 20th and 21st overall.

Bouchut is just a tenth off the second factory Aston but his next time around leapfrogs the two Astons and Gavin, the Larbre Saleen second overall in GT1!  - 3:47.761 is only a tenth off Magnussen's provisional pole time.

The #33 Lola Coupe meanwhile has taken no part in the second session, the car had been wheeled behind the pits with some minor frontal damage.

An Epsilon makes it well into the top 20, Jean Marc Gounon a 3:34.8 up to 16th - not for long, he's demoted by..........the other Epsilon, Adrian Valles at the wheel.

Rob Bell is still pushing, under 4 minutes now in the Virgo Ferrari but still third in class.

Alain Ferte (#99 JMB Ferrari 430):

“We’re not sure how bad it is, the guys are still assessing the damage”

Mike Jankowski – Team Principal Creation AIM

Stuart has one to the hospital with some neck pain, they’ve put him in a brace as a precaution and he’ll have some tests.

“As for the car.  It’s pretty bad, but we think its fixable.  There’s parts coming out overnight from the UK.”

Hugh Hayden on the delay to the #33 Speedy Sebah Lola Coupe:

“Steve Zacchia had a big moment at the first chicane on the Mulsanne and hit the tyre wall.  There was a fair amount of damage to the front right and that’s put us back a fair bit.”

With apologies and unnoticed here Verstappen has grabbed LMP2 pole, a 3:32.301 is more than a second to the good.

Joao Barbosa pops up in 18th place in the Rollcentre Pescarolo, described earlier by Martin Short as handling and driving beautifully, a 3:35 dead for the Portugese.

The Dome has ground to a halt in the Porsche Curves, headlamps on but requiring a push to a place of safety from the marshals.

As the session enters the last 40 minutes Frank Biela sets a 3:26.445 for the #1 Audi's fastest lap, still 7th overall though.

Pierre Ehret spins out, seemingly harmlessly at the Dunlop Chicane and Jacques Nicolet apparently makes a bid for freedom, taking a wrong turn, or rather no turn, running straight on at Arnage.

Into the last half hour and the #72 Luc Alphand Corvette has stopped at the Dunlop Esses - Attention being paid to the #64 Corvette in the pits seems to indicate that Max Papis has been off course at some point in the recent past.

A question by email from the ALMS's Ryan Smith asks whether Corvette have ever won pole position before - the answer is yes - In 1976! in the IMSA GT class for John Greenwood and Bernard Darniche's 'Spirit of '76.

It is also the first time in a decade that Porsche (or anyone) has set pole position in two classes.

As the clock ticks down to the last few minutes Werner improves the #1 Audi's time, now a tenth behind the #10 Lola but Enge has gone out for a last minute blast too.  He pits though and Werner goes by onto his last lap of qualifying.

Piccini is now within a tenth of the 4th placed #009 Aston in GT1.

Vitaphone Aston Martin

Alexander Nejaro: I was on my way back to Brazil when I got the call from Michael (Bartels). We talked and he convinced me this would be a great opportunity – a Le Mans start looks good on your CV; even better if you can get a finish.

I did my 3 laps and the car feels OK, though it’s difficult to get a set-up that suits every driver. We are just working on a good set up for the race without taking any risks as the package is new to the team.

Nick Leventis: There is a fabulous atmosphere here and the whole set-up is just so professional. Test weekend and driving around last night was just amazing. We are taking things in small steps; the Michelins are working well and we are putting the race engine into the car right now in preparation for tonight’s session. This should be worth an extra 1 or 2 seconds a lap. Our realistic goal is to get to the finish in what is a new package, though don’t read too much into things this weekend – Michael is a loyal Maserati person.

Virgo Motorsport:

Tim Mullen: We’re pretty happy we’ve got a good race pace and are just doing final checks. The tyres are good and the feedback from Dunlop has been excellent. If we can keep ourselves out of the pits we should be looking good for a strong challenge.

Rollcentre Racing:

Joao Barbosa, just out of the car: We improved our time in our race set-up; the car’s getting better and better all the time. We’re just trying different tyre compounds, working really hard to get a good race car. It’s a really easy car to drive at the moment, which is great.

Team Modena:

Paul Jurd: We’ve worked very hard this week and have a really good car at last. This is this chassis’ third Le Mans – it’s basically the car that finished 9th in 2006. Christian is just out of the car and is really happy with it. We’ve managed to stay out of trouble, unlike some people – the Dunlop Curve seems to have attracted a lot of cars today. Terry (Borcheller) has a theory that it’s the piece of track you drive the least in an event with the pit exit being there, so it’s tricky to master at speed. Someone apparently said there are some painted marks in the road, which may be a distraction. It’s great to be back on the sort of form we are used to, it’s been a tough year so far.

So Peugeot, Porsche, Corvette, Porsche - LMS, LMS, ALMS, ALMS - French, Dutch, Danish, American - split it any way you want but there were some extraordinary times, some extraordinary performances and sadly an extraordinary number of damaging accidents too.

There will be several teams including Kruse Schiller and Creation AIM  who will already be running an endurance race just to be on the grid on Saturday.  This is really a tough place to get it wrong.