Pescarolo take provisional pole

Collard beat Audi's first session best by more than five seconds, however the circuit remained atrociously wet as night fell on La Sarthe.

Both two-hour sessions were run in soaking wet conditions, and the provisional pole time is more than 40 seconds off the best lap set in the dry test session run at the French track last week.

If, as predicted, tomorrow's qualifying is held in dry conditions, tonight's times will be worthless for the grid for Sunday's race.

The sister #16 Pescarolo of Franck Montagny held the provisional pole for much of the second session; however, Collard took the top spot for the number 17 car with 15 minutes to go with a succession of quick laps.

Having topped the first daylight session, the two Audis were knocked back to third and fourth quickest on the provisional grid.

Allan McNish set the third fastest time in the number 7 Audi R10 TDI, 3.3 seconds off Collard's best.

However, teammate Rinaldo Capello ended the session early after crashing on his outlap at the Tertre Rouge Esses when he took over the car. Marshals tried to push the car back out, however, the damage forced the Italian to abandon the car.

Frank Biela set the best time for the number 8 Audi, half a second behind its sister car.

Jamie Campbell-Walters put the #9 Creation on a provisional fifth spot on the grid with a quick time late in the second session, more than eight seconds off the front-running Pescarolo's pace.

Jan Lammers was also running quickly in the final minutes of the second session, improving the Racing for Holland Dome's provisional grid slot by a position to end the day in sixth.

Despite a spin towards the end of the session, Marcel Fassler gave his Swiss Spirit Courage the seventh fastest time.

The highest LMP2 runner remained the number 20 Pilbeam, with Simon Pullen's fastest time from early in the first session being good enough to take a provisional seventh on the grid.

The 007 works Aston Martin remained the fastest GT1 runner with neither Darren Turner, Tomas Enge nor Andrea Piccini improving on their time from the first session.

However their main rivals in the class, Corvette, decided again not to risk their cars in the soaking conditions. The team's two cars completed a combined total of 17 laps during the four-hour session, enough for each of their drivers to complete the statutory three laps during the night session.

German Jorg Bergmeister put the White Lightning Porsche 911 on pole in the GT2 class with a time of 4:39.912 halfway through the second session.

There are another two, two-hour qualifying sessions scheduled for tomorrow evening.