Lehto Unsure about Qualifying Form

Acknowledged Le Mans expert JJ Lehto isn't overly optimistic of adding the victors' garlands for Champion Racing to those he won with McLaren back in 1995, because of the hobbling of Audi's R8s for this year's race.

Glance at the timesheets after Wednesday's pair of two-hour qualifying sessions and you may wonder why he is so pessimistic as the car he shares with six-time event winner Tom Kristensen and Marco Werner lapped second fastest, 0.83 seconds off the pace.

However, he was rueing the lack of set-up that they achieved on the wet track. "The track was useless last night," he grimaced. "There was no point in doing a single set-up change. It would have been a waste of tyres."

"The cars are so slow this year with the 50 kilos of ballast that we've been made to carry along with the air restrictor," said the Finnish driver. "With the cars as they are, there will be nothing that myself, Tom or Marco will be able to do about the Pescarolos in qualifying. We may even end up as much as six seconds per lap slower than them.

"In the race, this disadvantage should reduce, but it still may be as much as two, three seconds per lap. Also, we don't know about their reliability. Mind you, we're not that sure about ours with the cars in this revised form..."