Montagny fastest for Pescarolo

Montagny was the only driver of the day to set a lap time under three minutes and 31 seconds, his fastest effort of 3:30.195 put just as the chequered flag dropped.

But the Frenchman admitted his times were down to last-minute tyre choice, saying: "I used medium tyres in the afternoon, but towards the end of the session I put qualifying tyres, just to try them and to make a choice for the next qualifying. It was a good feeling."

Pescarolo's pace was no fluke, however: earlier in the session, Montagny set a lap of 3:31.687 - which in itself remains the second fastest lap of the day.

Second fastest was Rinaldo Capello in the Audi R10, with a time of 3:32.090 - almost two seconds slower than Montagny's 'qualifying' time. Pescarolo's second car, in the hands of Emmanuel Collard, was third fastest, a split second behind the Audi - and almost a second ahead of the second Audi, driven by Marco Werner.

Pescarolo and Audi exchanged fastest laps throughout the day, with Pescarolo's Eric Comas and Collard switching places at the top of the timesheets with their Audi rivals Tom Kristensen and Allan McNish.

Some way behind the two dominant teams, clear favourites for the win in this year's event, was Courage's Jean-Marc Gounon, followed by Alex Yoong in the Dome-Judd car of the Racing for Holland team.

In fact, none of the runners came anywhere close to Audi's and Pescarolo's perseverance with the dirty track. While the two Prototype 1 leaders ran a total of 162 laps (Audi) and 180 laps (Pescarolo), Courage racked up just a hundred laps for both cars.

Creation Autosportif were also struggling with reliability issues throughout the day, the team running the least amount of laps among the LMP1 class - 40 in total.

The team's lead driver, Nicolas Minassian, suffered a puncture at high speed in the initial morning session, while many drivers found the track exceptionally dirty.

Minassian's was the most spectacular tyre blowout, bringing out the red flag, but he was by no means the only driver to suffer from gravel and trash on the unused track: a total of nine cars suffered from puncture

If the LMP1 category offered no surprises, neither did the GT1, with both Aston Martins ahead of their Corvette rivals.

Tomas Enge was the fastest Aston Martin for most of the day, ending with a best time of 3:51.408 - over a second ahead of teammate Stephane Ortelli, and over 1.5 seconds ahead of Corvette's Oliver Gavin.

Nelson Piquet Jr's Le Mans debut ended with gearbox problems, forcing the Brazilian to stop on track in his privateer Russian Age Racing Aston Martin. He ended the day tenth fastest in his class.

In the GT2 category, Tim Mullen took first honours for Scuderia Ecosse, lapping in the Ferrari 430 in 4:04.252, over half a second ahead of Romain Dumas in the Porsche RS.

Test day results: