Pirro expects similar strategies

The Italian, who has won the event for the last two years in the Audi R10, says the days of keeping one car on a conservative plan while sending a 'hare' off at a faster pace at the start are gone.

"Nowadays you can't really have a strategy like this, or one car to go off fast," he told autosport.com. "There's nothing you can really do to break the car any more. If you're going to have a mechanical problem it will happen whether you're going fast or slow.

"We know the engine isn't going to break if we push, we can be very hard on the brakes and tyres, you can only be a little more aggressive over the kerbs.

"Also, you can have a more or less aggressive set-up, which affects the tyres, fuel and driveability. When you go low downforce you have a faster car but it's very nervous, harder to drive through traffic, and easier to lose when something goes wrong. But we are normally on the conservative side."

Pirro says the difference between the cars will come from how each driver approaches the traffic.

"Every lap you come across at least a dozen cars and you can take more or less risks. When you have a 50/50 situation you can decide to be conservative or go for it, this is the only place that strategy counts any more."

He also played down the significance of qualifying and says his No.1 car, which qualified seventh, did so with half a tank of fuel on board, while some of its rivals may have opted for an optimum qualifying run.

"At Audi we've never really given much importance to qualifying, especially so this year. We have to work on the weapons we have, not the weapons we don't have. We have race consistency, a user-friendly car that's nice to drive and enables you to push for a number of laps without getting too tired.

"We were trying to find a nice balance for the race and we did our time with half a tank, which is not the very best time we can do.

"When the track is cool between, 2200 and 2215, is when the best times are set. If you go out with no fuel and the right tyres you can set a really quick time."