Peugeot happy with rebuilt car

The team had to build up a new No.7 car from scratch after Marc Gene's crash at the test day 11 days ago. Gene and Jacques Villeneuve had stints early in qualifying before Nicolas Minassian set a 3:20.451 towards the end of the first two-hour session.

Peugeot Sport director Michel Barge praised the work of the team for making the car competitive so quickly.

"The crash during the test day gave us the added challenge of having to build a new car in just one week," he said. "But the mechanics did a remarkable job and we only gave the car its shakedown run here on the airfield on Tuesday evening."

Minassian added: "The most important thing was to make sure we have a nicely balanced car so we essentially focused on fine-tuning our race set-up without worrying too much about setting a quick qualifying time."

Gene admits he's still feeling the effects of his crash last weekend but is confident that he can still perform at his best in the race.

"My back is still hurting a bit but I think that's something I'm going to have to live with all weekend," he said. "I didn't have any problems getting back in the rhythm, although I wasn't perhaps as fast as usual through the corner where I crashed."