Di Resta leads Le Mans practice

The Mercedes driver topped the timesheets for the majority of the session, but he was bumped down the order as Audi's lead drivers did their qualifying simulation runs in the final five minutes.

Di Resta responded with his own final blast in the last seconds of the session, which put him fastest by just 0.082 seconds.

Audi's Mattias Ekstrom was on top briefly towards the end before dropping to second, while di Resta's teammate Bruno Spengler followed the Scot round at the end of the session and set the third fastest time.

Friday's pace-setter Tom Kristensen was fourth for Audi, while di Resta's title rival Timo Scheider - who has a seven point lead coming into this weekend - was only fifth, nearly three tenths of a second adrift of the Mercedes.

Jamie Green set the fastest final sector on his lap, which was good enough for sixth, despite going very wide at the final corner and dragging lots of gravel onto the track.

Martin Tomczyk and Bernd Schneider made sure that the top eight places were filled by the eight new cars in the field, while Markus Winkelhock and local driver Alexandre Premat completed the top 10 in their 2007-spec Audis.

Pos  Driver             Car       Time
 1.  Paul Di Resta      Mercedes  1:30.284
 2.  Mattias Ekstrom    Audi      1:30.366  + 0.082
 3.  Bruno Spengler     Mercedes  1:30.475  + 0.191
 4.  Tom Kristensen     Audi      1:30.497  + 0.213
 5.  Timo Scheider      Audi      1:30.545  + 0.261
 6.  Jamie Green        Mercedes  1:30.648  + 0.364
 7.  Martin Tomczyk     Audi      1:30.705  + 0.421
 8.  Bernd Schneider    Mercedes  1:30.966  + 0.682
 9.  Markus Winkelhock  Audi      1:31.238  + 0.954
10.  Alexandre Premat   Audi      1:31.400  + 1.116
11.  Mike Rockenfeller  Audi      1:31.470  + 1.186
12.  Oliver Jarvis      Audi      1:31.481  + 1.197
13.  Gary Paffett       Mercedes  1:31.665  + 1.381
14.  Christijan Albers  Audi      1:31.886  + 1.602
15.  Susie Stoddart     Mercedes  1:32.099  + 1.815
16.  Maro Engel         Mercedes  1:32.109  + 1.825
17.  Mathias Lauda      Mercedes  1:32.241  + 1.957
18.  Ralf Schumacher    Mercedes  1:32.785  + 2.501
19.  Katherine Legge    Audi      1:32.943  + 2.659