Roman Rusinov took the Team Modena Ferrari 430 GT out onto the Le Mans track at the start of the second of Thursday’s nights qualifying sessions for the Le Mans 24-Hour race, and the team’s new Russian recruit showed his pace with some rapid laps in the gathering dark. Roman chipped away at his times to finish 12th fastest of the 17 LM GT2 category runners, setting the team’s grid position for Saturday’s race start.

The team did not aim to go for a top qualifying position, preferring to use the dry track time to set the car up for the race, a good handling car crucial in any endurance race and especially so at Le Mans.

“We have had a good session,” said Sporting Director Rik Bryan, “we have made good progress with the car and drivers. We are going in the right direction for the race – qualifying at LM is not the most important thing, but getting the car right for the drivers is.

“Roman felt he could have gone quicker if he had pushed more, but I think we have the pace we need for the race.”

“It was my first time in the dry in the car,” said Roman, “and after my first run I had two laps on new tyres. Maybe with new tyres gain I could have improved by two seconds, I had some traffic on my best lap. Going for pole is really just for the press here, the car has a good balance – we have a good race car.”

There is no track activity on the Friday of a Le Mans week, giving the teams the final opportunity to fettle their cars for the race. Attention instead is on the Le Mans city centre, where the traditional driver’s parade starts at 6pm local time and winds through the streets in front of around 100,000 massed race fans.