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Peugeot secures Petit front row

Peugeot swept the front row of the grid for the Petit Le Mans, with Nicolas Minassian putting the #07 car on the top spot in front of Franck Montagny's #08 machine

The Le Mans winning 908s had dominated at Road Atlanta since the start of practice on Thursday morning, and although Audi narrowed the gap in final practice earlier today, Peugeot proved unstoppable in qualifying trim.

Minassian's 1m06.937s beat Montagny by 0.223s, while Dindo Capello was a full 1.2s down on the Peugeots in the best of the Audis.

The two R15 TDIs share the second row, with Lucas Luhr just 0.028s slower than Capello.

Simon Pagenaud put the sole LMP1 Acura in the session in fifth place for De Ferran - the Highcroft car still being reconstructed around a new chassis following Scott Sharp's huge accident yesterday. Pagenaud pushed right to the end of the session to try and get among the diesels, eventually closing to within 0.2s of the Audis and emerging over a second faster than the rest of the petrol field.

The De Ferran car will share row three with the ORECA, which just beat the Intersport Lola. The Drayson Lola is set to make its debut from ninth on the grid after Jonny Cocker stopped on track with a fuel pump problem and caused a brief red flag.

Marino Franchitti took another LMP2 pole for Dyson, while the sister Lola-Mazda sat out the session as it is running on a development fuel that will make it ineligible for points, so is using the event as a test. Cytosport Porsche's Klaus Graf beat the class champion Fernandez Acura to second, 1.2s down on Franchitti's dominant run.

The GT class saw a sensational battle for pole and a shock one-two for two of the American Le Mans Series' smallest teams.

Veteran David Murry gave Robertson Racing the first pole for its Doran Ford, ahead of the LG team's Riley Corvette. Murry had taken provisional pole early on, and was then pushed back to third as the #4 factory Corvette and then Tom Sutherland's Riley car jumped ahead. But Murry was not willing to relinquish the position and went back out for a second attempt - beating Sutherland by 0.058s and Olivier Beretta by 0.093s.

The Rahal Letterman BMWs were back in fourth and fifth after dominating practice - although Dirk Muller was still within a tenth of pole in the ultra-close field - while the #45 Flying Lizard car was the top Porsche in sixth.

The Risi Ferrari only managed a single flying lap before a tyre blew and sent Jaime Melo back to the pits, leaving the car 10th in class.

Pos  Drivers                       Cl   Car             Time
 1.  Minassian/Lamy                P1   Peugeot         1m06.937s
 2.  Sarrazin/Montagny             P1   Peugeot         1m07.160s
 3.  Capello/McNish                P1   Audi            1m08.200s
 4.  Luhr/Werner                   P1   Audi            1m08.228s
 5.  De Ferran/Pagenaud/Dixon      P1   Acura           1m08.348s
 6.  Panis/Lapierre/Dumas          P1   ORECA           1m09.566s
 7.  Field/Field                   P1   Lola            1m09.685s
 8.  Leitzinger/Franchitti/Devlin  P2   Lola-Mazda      1m10.152s
 9.  Drayson/Cocker/Bell           P1   Lola            1m10.552s
10.  Pickett/Graf/Maassen          P2   Porsche         1m11.405s
11.  Fernandez/Diaz                P2   Acura           1m11.758s
12.  Burgess/McMurry/Willman       P1   Lola            1m12.676s
13.  Murry/Robertson/Robertson     GT2  Doran Ford      1m20.819s
14.  Sutherland/Drissi/Bell        GT2  Riley Corvette  1m20.877s
15.  Beretta/Gavin/Fassler         GT2  Corvette        1m20.912s
16.  Muller/Milner/Muller          GT2  BMW             1m20.981s
17.  Hand/Auberlen/Priaulx         GT2  BMW             1m21.219s
18.  Bergmeister/Long/Lieb         GT2  Porsche         1m21.299s
19.  Magnussen/O'Connell/Garcia    GT2  Corvette        1m21.491s
20.  Farnbacher/James              GT2  Panoz           1m21.648s
21.  Henzler/Werner                GT2  Porsche         1m21.760s
22.  Melo/Kaffer/Salo              GT2  Ferrari         1m22.718s
23.  Sellers/Cicero                GT2  Porsche         1m23.081s
24.  Feinberg/Hall                 GT2  Dodge           1m23.121s
25.  Law/van Overbeek/Neiman       GT2  Porsche         1m25.601s

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