Audi dominates testing ahead of the 2012 Sebring 12 Hours

The German manufacturer made good on its tag as heavy favourite - bestowed upon it following Peugeot's 12th hour withdrawal from the championship - by locking out the top three in all but one session, when the Muscle Milk HPD managed to break into third.

The No.2 R18 shared by Allan McNish, Tom Kristensen and Rinaldo Capello set the overall best time, a 1m47.187s, in the afternoon session on Monday.

While the No.1 and No.3 R18s were able to get within 1.2s of that benchmark, the next nearest challenger - Lucas Luhr, Klaus Graf and Simon Pagenaud's Muscle Milk - was a further 1.4s down the road.

The second ALMS LMP1 car, the Dyson Racing Lola, was fifth fastest, just ahead of Nick Leventis, Danny Watts and Jonny Kane in the No.21 Strakka HPD, which steps up the P1 ranks this year following two successful seasons in P2.

Across in LMP2 the pace was set by the Level 5 Motorsports HPD of Scott Tucker, Luis Diaz and Ryan Hunter-Reay. A 1m52.055s put the trio more than one second clear of the rest of the field.

The fastest WEC LMP2 car was the pre-season favourite No.49 Pecom ORECA-Nissan, which set a 1m53.527 on the final afternoon of the test.

In GTE Pro, WEC and ALMS entries shared the honours over the four sessions, with the WEC No.59 Luxury Racing Ferrari 458 of Frederic Makowiecki, Jaime Melo and Jean-Karl Vernay setting the outright best time, a 2m00.830s.

The No.51 AF Corseand No.77 Felbermayr Porsche 911 were among its chief rivals in the WEC entries, while in ALMS the two RLL BMW M3s were among the main pacesetters.

The No.58 Luxury Racing Ferrari 458 was the fastest of the GTE Am entries.

After a break on Wednesday, there will be three practice sessions on Thursday - including a mandatory night session - before a final practice and then qualifying on Saturday.

The 2012 Sebring 12 Hours then commences at 10.30 local time on Saturday 17 March.