McNish: Champion my tip

Champion's driver crew's blend of experience and speed, coupled to the fact that the team has been running an R8 at Le Mans as long as any team in the race, make JJ Lehto, Marco Werner and Emanuele Pirro formidable opponents.

"If you look at it on paper Champion are favourites," said McNish. "They have got three guys who know the car very well and this race very well. They've all won either this race or a major championship. They are in a strong position as they have the most experience of the Audi at Le Mans.

"They've not been good in qualifying but if you analyse what they have done you see that they decided not to go after pole at about half past eight on Wednesday. They've been concentrating on the race setup. You certainly cannot discount them."

McNish loves Le Mans and adores driving on the 13.65km circuit and clearly wanted to be on pole, but Herbert pipped him to that honour.

"Obviously it's a bit disappointing not to get the pole," said McNish. "You always want to have a go. It's what we are paid to do and I don't believe any driver who says he isn't interested in the pole.

"It would have been nice to have a go, but with the engine change last night I decided we needed to work on the race setup in the few minutes that we had left. We only finished the engine change with about 25 minutes of the second session left."