Corvette on top at Paul Ricard

The PSI Experience duo, who are taking part in only their second FIA GT round this season, set a time of 1:52.841 in their Corvette C6.R.

The French team, who decided to come to the race after finishing fifth in the recent Spa 24 Hours, had already topped the first free practice session held this morning.

"For me it's unbelievable," Menten told autosport.com. "My objective was qualifying in the top five. We hope for a good race - if you qualify on pole, you have to go for a podium.

"This is the first time we did a three-hour race, we're used to doing a 1,000kms [in the Le Mans Series] or a 24 hours race. This is more like a sprint race."

Lining up alongside PSI on the grid will be the Maserati MC12 of Thomas Biagi and Briton Jamie Davies, ahead of the GLPK Corvette C6.R of Mike Hezemans, Bert Longin and Anthony Kumpen.

The highest-placed Aston Martin DBR9 is the Race Alliance of Karl Wendlinger and Philip Peter in fourth, while Spa 24 Hours winners Michael Bartels and Andrea Bertolini will line up in fifth position.

Phoenix Racing, whose drivers Andrea Piccini and Jean-Denis Deletraz narrowly missed out on victory in the closely-fought Spa classic, will start from 13th position having experienced a tough weekend so far, completing just six laps in three hours of practice time.

In GT2, Scuderia Ecosse have maintained their 100 per cent qualifying record, with Andrew Kirkaldy and Nathan Kinch taking class pole from teammates Tim Mullen and Marino Franchitti by just 0.265.

The similar Ferrari 430 of Jaime Melo and Matteo Bobbi came third in the GT2 class.