McNish: More to come from Audi

Wet conditions during the six-hour first practice session meant that none of the leading runners improved on the times they set in the first hour, and the #1 Audi R15 of Tom Kristensen, Rinaldo Capello and McNish was fastest of all at 3m30.708.

"The rain has made it difficult for us to judge where we are," he said. "The R15 seems faster through the slow-speed stuff, although to be fair the R10 wasn't a bad car in those types of corner.

"The problem has been that the rain has been stop/start so much during the test session that it has been difficult to generate consistent data. Once it started to rain properly it became easier to assess the car in the wet - but how long is it going to rain for in the race?

"Everyone is trying to look after their cars because having a shunt and damaging it sets you back too much time.

"The Peugeots seem to be more competitive in the wet than they were last year, so they've solved that problem. I think it's going to be a long weekend.

"But I know there's more to come from me and the car because I wasn't going to the limit."