Italy’s Gianmaria Bruni will start the 2011 Petit Le Mans from first place on the GT grid after a late effort of 1m18.699s promoted the Italian to top spot with very little of the session remaining.

The Ferrari driver sat in second place for much of the 15-minute run, a mere 0.028s off the pace. “My engineer joked that I could surely find an extra tenth of a second,” he reported. “He told me that anybody could improve by one tiny tenth. My Michelin tyres were very good so I had a go and I succeeded!”

AF Corse/Michelin is battling with BMW for the 2011 ILMC GT title, so the squadra will be pleased to have relegated its rivals to second and third places. BMW’s Werner actually topped the timesheet for much of the session until being toppled by Bruni.

Fourth place on the grid was bagged by the N°62 Ferrari F458 Italia (Melo/Vilander/Matos), while the N°045 Porsche 911 RSR (Bergmeister/Long/Pilet) made it three different makes in the top five places.

AF Corse, BMW M3, Ferrari 458, ILMC GT title, Michelin, Petit Le Mans 2011