Saleen on pole at Dijon

"It was quite difficult for me," he said. "I was sitting in the car for 10 minutes. I said 'I have to go out now, I feel really nervous!' I had a clean lap until the last corner, there was a Porsche [in the way] it gave me the space, but only just."

In a closely fought session, the second to sixth positions were separated by just over two tenths of a second. Lining up alongside Janis on the grid will be the Maserati MC12 of Jamie Davies.

The Briton's fastest time in the 20-minute session was just 0.030 seconds ahead of the third-placed Aston Martin DBR9 of RaceAlliance's Philipp Peter. The pair were two of the first to take to the track and traded top times until they were beaten by the Zakspeed, which ended up 0.75 seconds clear of them.

Corvette runners GLPK Carsport, who took victory in the last round at Paul Ricard, will line up fourth.

In the GT2 class, Scuderia Ecosse maintained their 100% pole record, with Andrew Kirkaldy once again setting the fastest time. He will line up ahead of the pair of AF Corse cars, with the Ferrari 430 of Jamie Melo in front of that of Mika Salo.