Serene Muller tops practice

The Opel star, who has already claimed his fifth successive Andros Trophy title by winning this year's series, topped the timesheets with a lap of 57.550s.

'No problems,' he said serenely afterwards. 'Everything is going well.'

Despite running under different regulations, which ban four wheel steering, the fastest cars were all regular Andros competitors. Opel France's Astras took the top two places, with Helary and Dayraut less than 0.3s slower than Muller and Snobeck.

Marcel Tarrès, sharing his Citroen Xsara with Marc Duez, was third, ahead of Pierre Colard's Peugeot 306. The leading Nissan Micra, driven by Jean-Pierre Malcher and Emmanuel Collard, was fifth.

Despite the car still being damaged from it's Serre Chevalier crash, the Subaru Forester of Christophe Balas came in 13th place.

'We've done some cosmetic repairs, but the bits that are bent will remain bent until Paris,' Balas said.

Chamonix resident and regular Porsche driver Michel Ligonnet is driving a Porsche 993 here. However, the experienced endurance driver was unlucky in his practice session. "

'Twice someone spun in front of me,' he explained. 'On the second lap I lost time, and on the third, which was going really well, I had to stop totally. So my best time was my reconnaissance lap, and we're well down in the times.' He came in 18th.T

This afternoon the cars line up on the grid for three 25-minute qualifying races. 16 cars race at a time, with an obligatory driver changeover between the tenth and twentieth minutes.

Leading practice times from Chamonix: