Oreca Chasing Glory for France

Team Audi Playstation Oreca are going all-out for a rare French victory, but their team boss Hughes de Chaunac is worried that his driver line-up of Jean-Marc Gounon, Franck Montagny and Stephane Ortelli may be beaten to this by either of Pescarolo Sport's two cars.

The last French driver to win the 24 Hours was Yannick Dalmas who won for BMW in 1999, a year after Ortelli and Laurent Aiello shared victory for the works Porsche team with Allan McNish. You have to go back even further, to 1993, to find the last victory by a French team, when Christophe Bouchut, Eric Helary and Geoff Brabham won for the works Peugeot team.

"There are five or six makes of car that might win, which is excellent for the fans," said de Chaunac. "But we have nine top French drivers spread between us and Pescarolo Sport who all have a great chance to win. We know that the Pescarolo cars are very competitive and fast, so we at Audi will be counting on our reliability."

Asked how much priority he was placing on tonight's qualifying sessions, de Chaunac was unequivocal, saying "starting on the second row rather than the fourth matters less to us than sorting out our car for the race."

Of his trio of drivers, Montagny in particular is looking forward to the race, as he has missed the cut and thrust of racing action after spending the past two years as test driver for the Renault F1 team.