Porsche believes it can go even faster in Le Mans qualifying

The Swiss driver, who claimed the overnight pole with a 3m16.887s set at the start of first qualifying, believes that an improvement in track conditions could yield faster times over the final four hours of qualifying.

He also pointed out that he lost a significant amount of time in traffic on his quick lap, which is the fastest lap of Le Mans since the chicanes were added to the Mulsanne Straight in 1990.

But Jani stressed that another qualifying bid would depend on Porsche completing its race preparations with its trio of 919 Hybrids, which currently block out the top three positions on the timesheets.

"The track was still quite green last night, so if the grip improves there is definitely more to come," the Swiss driver told AUTOSPORT.

"We still have to prepare for the race, so I am not sure that the team will let us go again for a quick time."

Porsche LMP1 team principal Andreas Seidl said a decision had yet to made on whether Porsche would attempt to improve on its times.

"We will concentrate on our race programme and see how we do and what the conditions are, and then we will decide," he explained.

Porsche gave Jani, Timo Bernhard and Nick Tandy, who ended up second and third in the times, a qualifying shot right at the start of the first two-hour qualifying session on Wednesday.

Nico Hulkenberg, who shares the #19 car with Tandy and Earl Bamber, was then allowed a qualifying run in the dark during the final half hour of the session, but failed to improve on Tandy's time.

Audi, which took fourth place in the times with a 3m19.866s from Loic Duval, believes that the Porsche is out of range in qualifying.

Andre Lotterer said: "We all know that Audi never tries too hard in qualifying, but if you look at the times, I think Porsche is out of reach.

"And with the tyre limitations we have now [seven sets through practice and qualifying] it doesn't make sense to throw a set of tyres at it.

"If we get our work out of the way, maybe we will have a little go at it, but it is not a priority."