Le Mans 24 Hours: OAK win hopes boosted by set-up breakthrough

The #24 car of Olivier Pla, David Heinemeier Hansson and Alex Brundle struggled to find a good balance in Wednesday's practice and was hampered by numerous disruptions caused by red flags.

But Pla improved late in Thursday night's final qualifying session to claim the class pole ahead of the #26 Delta-ADR ORECA-Nissan of Roman Rosinov, John Martin and Mike Conway, and the Frenchman says they are now much more assured ahead of the race.

"We were really fast on the test day so I was expecting to have a good car," he told AUTOSPORT.

"Now the team is really confident compared to Wednesday. At the moment everything is under control.

"I think we have a very good car for the race. We expect some rain at some point so we have to stay out of trouble and be clever."

Brundle echoed his team-mate's positive comments, the Briton adding that in the warm-up - in which only Heinemeier Hansson drove - they were able to focus on honing a better race set-up.

"We reached a conclusion we're happy with this morning," he said. "We're relatively confident - and we weren't on Wednesday, when the car was oversteering in the corners and was nervous at high speeds.

"We'd have loved to have been able to put it away at 11pm on Thursday night but the way that testing worked out it wasn't to be. As it happened Olivier put in a great lap and that's the way it worked out.

"It might prove more crucial than we thought if it's a wet start, but in any case we've put ourselves in the best possible position."