Aston Martin is surprised about the pace advantage it has enjoyed over its gasoline rivals in the build-up to this year's Le Mans 24 Hours.
Stefan Mucke was the fastest gasoline-engined LMP1 in qualifying, taking his Lola-Aston Martin around in 3m26.680s, nearly three seconds faster than the fastest non-Aston, the ORECA of Soheil Ayari.
"I'm surprised the other cars aren't closer – they were faster last year," said Mucke. "We are faster than 2009, but it's probably more from the track because we haven't done any changes on the car. My lap was all right until the last sector when we hit traffic, and I think Darren [Turner] did as well."
Turner qualified the No. 009 Aston a tenth of a second behind Mucke, ninth on the grid.
"We didn't do a full-on attack, so I'm a bit surprised about the gap. But I don't know what the others have got race wise – maybe they've got performance in hand."