Peugeot will start the 2009 Le Mans 24 hour race from pole following a sensational last gasp qualifying lap by Stephane Sarrazin.

Audi looked set to take pole after dominating free practice Wednesday evening with Allan McNish setting the fastest time.

But as the clock headed to the midnight close of session Sarrazin reeled off a spectacular 3m22.888s just seven tenths quicker than McNish to give the French Automaker it’s third straight pole position.

The McNish Audi breaks up a Peugeot dominated front grid. The car of Nicolas Minassion. Pedro Lamy and Christian Klein will start from their ahead of the “borrowed” Peugeot of the Pescarollo team led by Jean-Christophe Boullion.

Australia’s David Brabham will start from fifth place thanks to a fast lap from Marc Gene, they’ll start alongside the second Audi led by Marco Werner.

The third Audi of Bernhard, Dumas and Premat will start out of position number seven with the Lola/Aston-Martin of Charouz, Enge and Mucke the fastest of the petrol powered cars in eighth place.

Aston Martin rounds out the top ten with the Davidson, Turner and Verstappen car just in front of Jarni, Belichi and Prost.

Danish driver Casper Elgaard won pole in LM P2 with the Essex Porsche RS Spyder just ahead of the other RS Spyder, of the Japanese Navi team Goh. Third in LM P2 is the Speedy Racing/Team Sebah Lola Judd.

As expected Corvette dominated the dwindling GT1 field with Jan Magnussen leading the category at the wheel of the #63 Corvette. The two GM works cars easily lead the class, outpacing the #66 Jet Alliance Aston Martin by over two seconds.

Porsche won the first battle with Ferrari in GT2 as the American based Flying Lizard team took their first pole at Le Mans. The famous red and silver Porsche 911 GT3 RSR of  Jorg Bergmeister won pole with a best lap at 4.03.202. The 2008 champions the Risi Competizione Ferrari team  is third, after being overtaken by another Porsche 911 GT3 RSR, the #77 car of the Felbermayr Proton racing team.

Australian based Danish driver Alan Simonsen will start out of position number 47 in his Ferrari 430 GT2.

The Le Mans 24 begins Saturday at 3.00 p.m. local time, Australian viewers can watch the start live on ONE HD from 10.30 p.m. 

Radio Le Mans is broadcasting live at www.radiolemans.com . Macintosh users having trouble accessing this feed should install VLC player and go direct to mms://mercury.radica.com/radioshowltd or mms://venus.radica.com/radioshowltd .