Minassian pips the Audis!

Germany's Pierre Kaffer put his local knowledge of the Nurburgring to good effect to steal a front row start away from Audi Sport UK Team Veloqx team-mate Jamie Davies for Saturday's 1000km Le Mans Endurance Series race. But Minassian trumped the German cars with his pole lap just 10 minutes from the end of the session, which earned top spot by just 98-thousandths of a second.

Overnight pole-sitter Davies was unable to improve on his provisional pole position time of 1m47.009s, and will start third in the second Veloqx Audi, ahead of the Team Goh R8 of Seiji Ara and Rinaldo Capello.

Kaffer said: "It was my aim to start from the front row, and we achieved this. I am very optimistic for the race. We have a good car and I feel at home at the Nurburgring."

Team-mate Johnny Herbert added: "Of course it is unfortunate that there is no Audi on pole position. But we learnt at Le Mans that is important to finish first at the end, not at the beginning."