McNish to start Le Mans from sixth place

Le Mans: Allan McNish starts his diesel-engined Audi from sixth position in the 78th Le Mans 24 Hour endurance sportscar race on Saturday afternoon (2pm BST) after the Scotsman improved his fastest lap time in last night’s (Thursday) final time trials.

The 40-year-old Scotsman swept his latest Audi R15 TDI to a third-row start position on the 56-car grid in tonight’s (THURS) final qualifying session. The Dumfries-born driver, who bids for his third and Audi’s ninth Le Mans race win, set a personal fastest time on 3mins 22.176secs around the 8.47-mile circuit – 2.485secs slower than the pole-starting Peugeot of Frenchman Sébastien Bourdais (3:19.711) courtesy of a time set on Wednesday.

“Significant progress was made in the final qualifying sessions – not only in terms of improving my rid position but in getting a ‘comfortable’ and consistent car for the race,” commented Allan.

"Between Wednesday and Thursday everybody worked hard to use the three programmes and bring together some big improvements on the set-ups and the balance of the car. Overall Dindo (Capello), Tom (Kristensen) and I got a bit more of a feeling of what we wanted for a race car in the 24 hours - which in our opinion is more important than the qualifying."

McNish’s latest achievement marks the 10th time his car has started from the front three rows of the grid in his 11 race Le Mans history. The Briton shares his Audi with co-drivers Dindo Capello (45/Italy) and Tom Kristensen (42/Denmark) ) – the “Great Dane” gunning for his ninth Le Mans triumph – in the same driver combination for the past four years.

The similar “factory” entered Audi R15 TDI sportscars of Timo Bernhard (29/Germany)/Romain Dumas (32/France)/Mike Rockenfeller (26/Germany) plus Marcel Fässler (34/Switzerland)/André Lotterer (29/Germany)/Benoît Treluyer (23/France) start from fifth and seventh positions respectively. Thursday’s qualifying session began with the track still damp but drying after a torrential rain storm earlier in the afternoon.

Meanwhile the Le Mans débutant Oliver Jarvis, from Cambridge, who shares his “customer” Audi R10 TDI with Christian Bakkerud (Denmark) and Christijan Albers (Netherlands), lines-up 13th in a car type that McNish took to Audi’s last Le Mans victory in 2008.

Forty-five minutes before the scheduled race start at 3pm (local) on Saturday afternoon, the 56 “starting” drivers will this year walk across the track to be strapped into their cars parked facing them in herringbone formation. They will then be strapped in with the help of their mechanics and then released one by one to take their places on the 56-car grid for the normal rolling start. The race, first run in 1923, traditionally began with drivers sprinting across the track and jumping in their racecars to mark the start of the race.