Green sets the pace at Le Mans

Green, who lost track time yesterday due to a water leak, lapped his AMG Mercedes in 1:31.293, just fractionally quicker than the leading Audi of Mattias Ekstrom on 1:31.351.

Christian Abt was an impressive third fastest in his 2005-spec Audi, ahead of the similar machines of Frank Stippler and Timo Scheider.

The 2006-spec Audis of Heinz-Harald Frentzen and Martin Tomczyk were next up, with Friday's pacesetter Bruno Spengler (Mercedes) down in eighth, but ahead of Audi's Tom Kristensen.

Kristensen must win on Sunday to keep his title hopes alive, while title favourite Bernd Schneider (Mercedes) was down in 12th this morning. TK will be hoping he stays there.

A big talking point of the weekend is the track marking bollards. The drivers' enthusiasm for knocking them over, to take a more favourable line through corners, is matched only by the French marshals' stubborn approach of replacing them protected only by locally-waved yellow flags. If this continues into qualifying, it risks descending into farce - nevermind the obvious scope for serious injury.

The final corner has also drawn criticism for the amount of gravel that is being dragged onto the circuit, although it seems the same drivers who criticise this are the ones actually creating the problem in the first place!

In other news, Thed Bjork continues to impress in his role as the replacement for the injured Nicolas Kiesa (who broke his leg in a motocross shunt) in a 2004-spec TME Audi A4. The Swedish Touring Car champion was 14th fastest on Saturday morning, continuing his record of topping the unofficial '2004 class' in every session this weekend.

Practice times:

Pos  Driver                 Make          Time
 1.  Jamie Green            Mercedes  1:31.293
 2.  Mattias Ekstrom        Audi      1:31.351  + 0.058
 3.  Christian Abt          Audi      1:31.647  + 0.354
 4.  Frank Stippler         Audi      1:31.797  + 0.504
 5.  Timo Scheider          Audi      1:31.824  + 0.531
 6.  Heinz-Harald Frentzen  Audi      1:31.843  + 0.550
 7.  Martin Tomczyk         Audi      1:31.861  + 0.568
 8.  Bruno Spengler         Mercedes  1:31.890  + 0.597
 9.  Tom Kristensen         Audi      1:31.906  + 0.613
10.  Daniel la Rosa         Mercedes  1:31.987  + 0.694
11.  Stefan Mucke           Mercedes  1:32.053  + 0.760
12.  Bernd Schneider        Mercedes  1:32.077  + 0.784
13.  Mika Hakkinen          Mercedes  1:32.092  + 0.799
14.  Thed Bjork             Audi      1:32.151  + 0.858
15.  Pierre Kaffer          Audi      1:32.229  + 0.936
16.  Susie Stoddart         Mercedes  1:32.602  + 1.309
17.  Jean Alesi             Mercedes  1:32.677  + 1.384
18.  Mathias Lauda          Mercedes  1:32.801  + 1.508
19.  Alexandros Margaritis  Mercedes  1:32.861  + 1.568
20.  Vanina Ickx            Audi      1:33.214  + 1.921