Peugeot confident despite crash

Gene put the number 7 car that he shares with Jacques Villeneuve and Nicolas Minnasian into the wall at Arnage early in the final two-hour session.

The car suffered minor front-end damage but did not run for the final 90 minutes of the session after the crash, which Gene said was the result of putting the wrong wet tyres on for the conditions.

"Marc has a bit of an off and damaged the front and he was stuck down there," said Minassian. "It was not a big problem. We did such good work at the test day that we have got all the data that we need. It wasn't too big a problem.

"But it is the same for everybody - the whole two days have been a mess. Nobody has had perfect preparation. Everybody is thinking of things they could have done, but it's not like you can just come here and test any time you like.

"It's been a messy two days actually, but it has been good to just see every single type of condition that you can get and learn to work around it."

Stephane Sarrazin, who claimed pole in the sister Peugeot, said that things were looking similarly good on his side of the garage, despite some minor technical problems during the evening.

"I am not sure what was wrong, just a couple of mechanical problems," the Frenchman said. "Only small problems, maybe take five or 10 minutes to fix, but you have to check everything. I think they are solved now.

"But you have new things all the time, you're never finished developing. In a LMP1 Prototype it is so difficult to have a reliable car."