Lehto on pole at Sebring

The Finn, who shares the Champion Audi with Emanuele Pirro and Marco Werner set pole on his Sebring debut in 1999, when he was driving for BMW, and went on to win the race.

Lehto is a former F1 driver himself and couldn't resist the opportunity to take a friendly poke at McNish. "Allan held me up on one lap while I was qualifying, so that made me really want to beat him," he said. "When these F1 guys come back here, we just have to give them a little lesson."

McNish, the 2000 American Le Mans Series champion, is confident that the Audi he shares with Frank Biela and Pierre Kaffer is in good shape for the race however. "I was on pole from the start until seven minutes before the end of the session," he said. "I went quicker on my very last lap but it wasn't quite good enough.

"Our car was set-up more with the race in mind than out-and-out qualifying, which bodes well for a successful race."

James Weaver qualified the Dyson Racing Lola-MG he shares with Butch Leitzinger and Andy Wallace third ahead of the all-British Audi of Johnny Herbert, Jamie Davies and Guy Smith.

Marino Franchitti's Rand Racing Lola inherited the LMP2 class pole after Jeff Bucknum's Pilbeam failed its stall test.

Oliver Gavin was also disallowed his GTS pole after the rear wing endplates on his Corvette were found to be 'out of compliance'. Ron Fellows' Corvette will take the place.


JJ Lehto/Emanuele Pirro/Marco Werner Audi R8 1m48.710s
Frank Biela/Allan McNish/Pierre Kaffer Audi R8 1m48.821s
James Weaver/Butch Leitzinger/Andy Wallace Lola-MG 1m49.887s
Johnny Herbert/Jamie Davies/Guy Smith Audi R8 1m49.944s
Jon Field/Duncan Dayton/Larry Connor Lola-Judd 1m51.288s
Rob Barff/Martin Short/Joao Barbosa Dallara-Judd 1m52.407s
Chris Dyson/Didier de Radigues/Jan Lammers Lola-MG 1m53.336s
Michael Durand/Chad Block/Georges Forgeois R&S-Elan 1m56.425s
Michael Lewis/Tomy Drissi/Vic Rice R&S-Lincoln 1m56.817s
Ron Fellows/Johnny O'Connell/Max Papis Chevrolet Corvette 1:57.052s