Alan McNish was probably a bit miffed to have been beaten by his team-mates in the first session and really went for it. Just after 20h00 he improved on Capello's best with a time of 3 mn 36.818 secs only to have Tom Kristensen go one better in No.8 in 3 mn 36.650 secs ten minutes later which the Scot equalled soon after. Then, after missing his braking for Arnage Alan dialled in pole at
 20h48 with a lap in 3 mn 36.124 secs. It was a bit slower than the one forecasted by Audi in April and way down on the time that McNish himself had anticipated. 'I don't really know why we haven't gone quicker,' said the Scot afterwards. ' The circuit was better than yesterday but it still lacks grip. The Ford chicane is tighter than in April losing us about a second. We've changed the suspension settings since Wednesday and the car feels better so I'm very happy with our race set-up.' All 3 Audis improved which was not the case for Panoz which concentrated on race trim. The American team seems to have overcome the oversteering problems and the drivers are happy. The only hitch was a blown engine on the No.23 Team Asahi TV Dragon Spyder.
The Judd-engined cars confirmed their promise the quickest being the Rafanelli Team Lola driven by Schiattarella. Philippe Gache also got under the 3 mn 40 sec barrier in his C60 Courage qualifying on the third row. Stefan Johansson was seventh fastest in his Reynard and his team-mate, Guy Smith, was voted best of the Rookies.
The works Cadillacs also improved in spite of many problems which hit the Dams Team in particular. Eric Bernard in No.3, who was ninth quickest overall, had his car catch fire out on the circuit with Montagny at the wheel. No. 4 driven by Kristian Kolby stopped twice on the track, first of all due to an electronic problem and then the steering failed sending the Cadillac into the Mulsanne sand trap.
In the Oreca camp the gearbox was changed on both Reynard-Mopars because of selection problems but Pierre Dieudonné, the team manager, is fairly optimistic. ' We've made good progress and if we manage to deal with the problems that we'll meet during the race, we'll be more than happy. Our aim is clock up as many kilometres as possible as we're not yet in a position to go for out and out victory '.
 

The LMP 675 Category was introduced by the A.C.O to give smaller constructors the opportunity to show whal they could do at a reasonable price. The performance of the Reynard-VWs is remarkable as the quickest driven by Boullion finished the session only 10 seconds slower than the Audi on pole !. 'Were we down to the minimum weight we'd be in the first ten,' said Fred Stalder, the ROC boss. The only real problem met by the French team was a broken wheel bearing on David Terrien's car which gave him a bit of a fright under braking. In the WR camp there were mixed feelings as Gérard Welter explains : ' We thought we'd be quicker but the main thing is to have 2 problem-free cars at the start.' The Debora also improved and finished ahead of all the LM-GTs.
 

The Viper-Corvette duel did not disappoint even if the Oreca cars did not try to improve on Wednesday's times. Wendlinger had a coming-together with a Porsche in the Porsche curve damaging the bodywork and suspension but was able to go back out later on. Both Corvettes improved and ended up on the heels of the quickest of the Vipers. The privately entered Chryslers ran into various problems : alternator for Carsport, clutch for the Goh entry and roodholding problems for Paul Belmondo. In spite of a puncture the Freisinger Team GT2 Porsche managed to get in among the Chrysler Vipers.