Qualifying Round Up 2

At the sharp end of the field, the battle during qualifying was mostly between the 4 works-entered Audi R8 LMS'and a raft (cluster, flock ??) of Porsches including the 3 Manthey team Porsche 997 RSR/GT3's ( winners of this race for the last 3 years), but at the end of qualifying it was car no 40, the Ford GT, driven by the all-German driver line-up of Dirk Adorf, Marc Henerici, Thomas Mutsch and Herman Tilke that got pole position with a time of 8:36.536. (This is the same Herman Tilke that has designed ( or in some cases re-designed) a large number of the current circuits used by F1.)

Behind the orange and white Ford is car no 1, the Manthey Porsche GT3 RSR of Timo Bernhard, Marc Lieb, Romain Dumas and Marcel Tiemann.
After years of trying to win this race, the Manthey Team seem to have found the secret. This driver line-up won the race in 2007 and 2008 and are in a strong position to make it a hat trick. Bernhard and Tiemann are already 3 time winners as they won in 2006, driving for Manthey, but with Lucas Luhr and Mike Rockenfeller as co-drivers. And these 2 drivers have not gone far !.
The next 4 positions on the grid are taken by Audi, with a very strong driver squad, who are debuting their new R8 LMS car prior to the start of customer deliveries.
That man Mike Rockenfeller is in 3rd place, in car no 99, with Marc Basseng, Marcel Fassler and Frank Stippler.
4th is car no 97 with Lucas Luhr, Christian Abt, Pierre Kaffer and Jean-Francois Hemroulle.
5th, car no 100 of Timo Scheider, Marco Werner, Mattias Ekstrom and Lucas Luhr again - Audi choosing to give him ( and Marcel Fassler ) two chances to be in the winning car.
Bringing up the rear of the Audi squadron in 6th place is probably their most experienced ( read also oldest !) driver line-up - the indomitable Hans-Joachim Stuck, sharing with Frank Biela, Emanuele Pirro and Fassler ( in case the others need an afternoon nap or something 8-)) - seriously, these 3 are very experienced and know how to win a race like this - and it is not done by grid position or the first few hours on track.

That said, with the quality of the line up this race attracts you cannot afford to relax either.

Behind the Audis, are 3 more Porsches, Manthey car no 2 - Emmanuel Collard, Wolf Henzler, Dirk Werner and Richard Lietz, and car no 5 ( Manthey ) and 6 (Jurgen Alzen).

Rounding out the top 10 ( and just in front of it's sister car ) is car no 25 - the Alpina BMW B6 of Johannes Stuck ( H-J's son) .

From 11th through to 20th are 6 more Porsches, 3 BMWs ( including the 2nd Alpina car of Franz Engstler and Alpina boss Andreas Bovensiepen) and a Dodge Viper.

Qualifying 16th is 'Ring specialist, Restaurant owner and BMW M5 Ring Taxi "pilot" Sabine Schmidt - a firm favourite of BBC Top Gear viewers after her succinct and almost unrepeatable analysis of Jeremy Clarkson's "talent" !

As previously noted - Car 51 will start 45th - which by my calculations is 6th in class - and we are all hoping for a trouble-free race.

The prospects are good for an exciting race and hopefully a dry one and we will keep you up to date through to Sunday afternoon hopefully ( or until the Coffee machine in the press room dries up !)