Augusto Farfus was able to celebrate tonight setting a lap time that has claimed his team pole position for the Le Mans 24 Hours. It was at the start of the final qualifying session round the 13.629-kilometre “Circuit de la Sarthe” that he got into the BMW M3 GT he shares with Jörg Müller and Dirk Werner for the first time on Thursday. It didn’t take the Brazilian long to get in the groove in the number 55 car and set a time of 3:57.592 minutes that was never bettered during the two-hour session.

It had not been such a good day for the other car of Andy Priaulx, Dirk Müller and Joey Hand. In the last 15 minutes of the early evening session Priaulx went out for the first time to see if he could beat the time set by a Ferrari to snatch provisional pole from his number 56 car. Just before the end of his out lap he hit what he described as a ‘sea of gravel’ in the very quick Ford chicane. There was nothing the driver could do on the slippery surface and so the car went off and crashed head on into the barriers. The team is now working flat out to get it ready for 15:00hrs on Saturday when the race will be started by the FIA President, Jean Todt.

Obviously Farfus was delighted with his time on only his second visit to this iconic race. His comment after he got out of the car at midnight was: “I didn’t get a run in the first session today, but knew the conditions at the start of the final session should be ideal for a quick lap. The car felt really good and so I was able to put together a good lap and was delighted with the time I set. Pole is certainly not vital for a good result in a 24-hour race, but it is a great feeling to know your car is the quickest in its class. Add to this the reliability that it has shown all year and I feel pretty confident ahead of the race.”

The teams will now have a day of ‘rest’ tomorrow with no track action. However, all the drivers will take part in the drivers’ parade through the streets of Le Mans in the afternoon. There will be a warm up from 09:00 to 09:45hrs on Saturday morning before the final countdown to the start.