Peugeot expect qualifying pace in race

Two of the three 908 HDis qualified with 3:18 laps, and Nicolas Minassian ran in the 3:21s in the dark on Thursday night. They have consistently run between three and six seconds a lap quicker than the Audis and believe they can run at that speed in the race if they have to.

"I think we can do something like that pace in the race," said Sarrazin, who set the pole position time. "Everyone will lose some time in traffic but it will be the same for Audi as for us so I think we can carry on being faster than them."

Minassian added: "I was doing a long stint, in race conditions (when he set the 3:21 at night). I expected those sort of lap times. If Audi are doing 24s or 25s then we should be able to do 21s."

Jacques Villeneuve, who shares the No.7 Peugeot with Minassian and Marc Gene, says that although the Peugeots can do that pace when required, they won't push for qualifying style lap times unless they need to.

"Those times were done when pushing. They are possible in the race, but do we want to keep a little margin? Probably. It will depend what the other Peugeots are doing, but it looked like we (No. 7) had the quickest car out there last night.

"From qualifying to race pace the gap (to Audi) will always close a little bit. I don't know if they're still working on qualifying set-up or not, it looks like they're always faster than the day before. But we are quicker and our race pace will still be quicker."