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Barbour happy, but no pole

Dick Barbour race director Tony Dowe say he is confident of winning the GT class at Le Mans, despite losing class pole on Thursday night

Christophe Bouchut in the Larbre Porsche GT3-R beat Barbour Racing's pole ace Dirk Muller to the fastest time by a quarter of a second on Thursday's faster qualifying session.

"I'm an old-fashioned kind of guy and chose to run the race engine on Thursday night to check it out," said Dowe. "In fact I'm surprised that only one other GT team went faster than us. Not many people will be able to remember who was on pole for the GT class this year. But they will be able to remember who actually won the class. And I hope that will be us."

Dowe said his tactics are based on common sense: "This race is run on public roads, so the second qualifying session is faster than the first. But the downside of qualifying on the second day is that you have to put your race engine into the car on Friday, so the first time you run it is in the warm-up.

"We took the 'we get paid to race on Sunday' approach," he added. "We were happy with our qualifying performance and decided to spend Thursday in race mode."

Dowe, who masterminded TWR Jaguar's Group C victories at the Circuit de la Sarthe, said he is confident for the race.

"All three drivers are two seconds quicker on a race pace than the drivers in the car that qualified third in class," he said. "We've got a very good opportunity here."

For a full list of qualifying results click here.

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