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Kristensen takes pole at Le Mans

Eight-time Le Mans 24 Hours winner Tom Kristensen took pole position for the DTM race on the shorter Bugatti version of the French track this afternoon

The Audi driver set his best lap on his first run in the crucial third segment of qualifying and held on to the top spot as the rest of the field struggled to make up time with their second set of tyres.

One man who did improve was Jamie Green, who joins Kristensen on the front row for Sunday's race.

Reigning champion Mattias Ekstrom will start third, just ahead of Paul di Resta. The Scot had a relatively quiet session, but crucially he starts ahead of championship leader Timo Scheider who is fifth.

Di Resta was made to sweat a bit in Q2, as his mechanics pushed his car into the garage with two minutes of the session remaining. He was sixth at the time and by no means guaranteed a slot in Q3, but to knock him out of the session Audi needed some of their 2007 cars to get ahead of him, which they failed to do.

Bernd Schneider and Bruno Spengler are next up for Mercedes, ahead of Martin Tomczyk, as the 2008-spec cars had the final session all to themselves.

Mike Rockenfeller was best of the rest in his 2007 Audi, just ahead of Oliver Jarvis, Alexandre Premat, and Markus Winkelhock in similar machinery.

Pos Driver              Car          Time         Gap
 1. Tom Kristensen      Audi         1:30.149
 2. Jamie Green         Mercedes     1:30.229  +0.080
 3. Mattias Ekstrom     Audi         1:30.245  +0.096
 4. Paul di Resta       Mercedes     1:30.379  +0.230
 5. Timo Scheider       Audi         1:30.545  +0.396
 6. Bernd Schneider     Mercedes     1:30.619  +0.470
 7. Bruno Spengler      Mercedes     1:30.765  +0.616
 8. Martin Tomczyk      Audi         1:31.181  +1.032
 9. Mike Rockenfeller   Audi         1:31.030  +0.881
10. Oliver Jarvis       Audi         1:31.170  +1.021
11. Alexandre Premat    Audi         1:31.422  +1.273
12. Markus Winkelhock   Audi         1:31.438  +1.289
13. Maro Engel          Mercedes     1:31.473  +1.324
14. Christijan Albers   Audi         1:31.585  +1.436
15. Susie Stoddart      Mercedes     1:32.029  +1.880
16. Gary Paffett        Mercedes     1:32.276  +2.127
17. Katherine Legge     Audi         1:32.410  +2.261
18. Mathias Lauda       Mercedes     1:32.722  +2.573
19. Ralf Schumacher     Mercedes     1:33.221  +3.072

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