McNish expects his time to be beaten

He posted a 3m23.650s on a last-gasp effort in the #1 Audi R15 with low fuel and new tyres, to beat the benchmark set earlier in the session by Franck Montagny in the #8 Peugeot 908.

But McNish believes Peugeot has the ability to lap quicker than that time on a true qualifying run with clear traffic.

"The car balance in first part of [the session] wasn't exactly ideal but as circuit came in, it got nicer," McNish told Radio Le Mans. "As people came into pits at the end of the session I was fortunate enough to get a clear run.

"I don't know whether that time will stand, in fact I doubt it looking at how much time the Peugeot lost on its quick lap when it got caught in traffic in the Porsche Curves - that's the crucial part of the track on a qualifying lap."

He does believe Audi will be capable of challenging Peugeot for victory in the race, even though he doesn't think it can compete for pace over a single qualifying lap.

"We've got a good, raceable car," McNish added. "I think it's closer [to the Peugeot] than the R10 was last year."

McNish's team-mate Tom Kristensen is also expecting a strong response from Peugeot in the final session.

"Allan had a go on a new set of tyres and now we have the fastest lap. We took it because we wanted to see how the car was with low fuel and Allan did a brilliant job as we expected," Kristensen said.

"We saw the Peugeots doing fast laps, but in traffic, so I'm sure down the pitlane they will have something up their sleeves for the next session."

After holding the top spot for the vast majority of the qualifying session, Montagny said he was not worried by Audi's late pace: "I'm not concerned, we didn't do anything for laptime so it's not a problem."