Zoom Let the battle commence

Peugeot and Audi will share the front row for the third race of the 2008 Le Mans Series, the Spa 1000kms after a record-breaking qualifying session.

Stephane Sarrazin set a time of 1m58.069 to head Allan McNish, who was second fastest for Audi. Peugeot's Marc Gene will share the second row with Mike Rockenfeller.

In high afternoon temperatures, expected to continue for tomorrow's race, Jos Verstappen again set the pole position in the LM P2 category, heading the Lola Coupe of Andrea Belicchi.

In GT1, fresh from his victory at Monza two weeks ago, Antonio Garcia waited until late in the session to set fastest time for the Team Modena Aston Martin DBR9. Ferrari again held sway in GT2, Gianmaria Bruni setting pole in the Virgo Motorsport Ferrari, narrowly edging out the Porsche of Marc Lieb.

Peugeot will start the Spa 1000kms from pole position after a fantastic qualifying effort from Stephane Sarrazin in the final minutes of a dramatic qualifying session.

The Frenchman was forced to wait until late in the session to set pole position in his Peugeot 908 HDi FAP after two red flags caused by accidents.

The first of those was caused by Jean de Pourtales, who crashed the Kruse Schiller Motorsport Lola Mazda. Pourtales was unhurt, but the accident caused heavy front-end damage. Shortly afterwards it was the turn of Olivier Pla to crash the Quifel-ASM team Lola. The accident caused heavy damage to the right side of the Lola, and the LMP2 Porsche of Didier Theys was lucky not to also become involved in the accident.

McNish had set his best time early in the session, before the first red flag and so was able to sit out the rest of qualifying, saving the tyres on which he must start tomorrow's race. The Scotsman set a time of 1m58.705s, fastest in the opening section of qualifying ahead of his team-mate Mike Rockenfeller.

Following the two red flags, the clock was re-set to six minutes, long enough for Sarrazin to snatch pole position and Marc Gene to launch his own attack on the Audis. Though the Spaniard was able to better Rockenfeller's time, despite suffering from oversteer, he was eight-hundredths of a second slower than McNish and will line up on the second row. The Lola Aston Martin was qualified by Stefan Mucke and the German, who will share the car with Czech driver Jan Charouz was demoted to fifth by the battling diesels.

Robbie Kerr managed only 11th fastest time in the Creation having gone off track in the final run to the flag.

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