MOTORSPORT: Toyota on pole for Le Mans 24-Hour

Audis to start behind Japan's finest and new-generation Porsches 
Toyota has set the qualifying pace for this weekend's Le Mans 24-Hour race but now has to prove it has the reliability to win the French classic for the first time against the might of Audi and Porsche.

Japanese ex-Formula One driver Kazuki Nakajima put one of Toyota's TS040 hybrids on pole position in the final qualifying session at night.

The field of 55 cars was given an extra half-hour on the track because of the time lost earlier in the week but Nakajima was the only driver to break 3 minutes 22 seconds for the famed 13.629 km Circuit de la Sarthe.

Toyota has been runner-up at Le Mans four times – last year as well as three times in the 1990s – without tasting victory. Mazda is the only Japanese manufacturer to have achieved the feat, in 1991.

Nakajima stopped the timing clock at 3:21.789 to become the only Japanese driver to have achieved a pole position at Le Mans.

Toyota has won the two six-hour lead-up races this year in the World Endurance Championship at Britain's Silverstone and Belgium's Spa, but now comes the ultimate test against the two most successful manufacturers at Le Mans – Audi, which has dominated the event this century, and Porsche, which won the event a record 16 times before having 16 years away before its return this year.

One of the two Porsche 919 hybrids will start alongside the Toyota on the front row on Saturday afternoon, French time, but it won't be that in which Australia's nine-time F1 grand prix winner Mark Webber is a driver.

The Webber Porsche will start fourth, alongside another Toyota, and was put there by young New Zealander Brendon Hartley, a former Red Bull junior driver when Daniel Ricciardo was in that development squad.

Hartley had been the fastest man on the track in earlier qualifying midweek.

Webber's participation at Le Mans is his first since two spectacular flips there in 1999 – before his F1 career – in a Mercedes-Benz that not only was withdrawn but outlawed because of the danger of its aerodynamics on a track with speeds of around 350kmh.

Audi is the only one of the three big manufacturers fielding three cars and all of the R18 e-tron quattros will start behind the Toyotas and Porsches in fifth, sixth and seventh.

One of them had to be totally rebuilt around a new monocoque after it had a massive crash in practice. Its French driver, Loic Duval, one of Audi's many Le Mans winners, escaped serious injury but has been relieved of any further duties for the weekend and Spanish ex-F1 driver and 2009 Le Mans victor with Peugeot, Marc Gene, called in.

Gene has been partnered with Dane Tom Kristensen, the most successful driver in Le Mans history with nine victories, and Brazilian Lucas di Grassi, a newcomer to sports car racing hoping to become the first driver from his country to achieve the ultimate success at Le Mans.

Audi and Porsche had been readying fresh tyres for a final attack on pole position in the last 15 minutes of qualifying but were denied by a yellow-flag "slow zone" after Indian Karun Chandok crashed an ORECA.

However, one of the Audis set the best time through the circuit's first sector – a clue that it might have toppled Toyota and Porsche.

The big three manufacturers have taken very different technical approaches to this year's race.

Toyota is using naturally-aspirated 3.5-litre petrol V8 engines combined with a supercapacitor  that give it almost 1000bhp.

Porsche has brought petrol 2.0-litre V4 turbos with lithium-ion batteries in its return to sports car racing, while Audi's heavily-revised R18s have diesel V6 turbos and flywheel energy storage.

Toyota and Porsche can deploy six megajoules of recovered energy per lap, while Audi has opted for just two.

The most technically intriguing car in the field is Nissan's ZEOD (zero emissions on demand), a petrol-electric hybrid bearing a close resemblance to the radical DeltaWing of a couple of years ago.

It has a 1.5-litre three-cylinder turbocharged engine and an electric motor – on which it is hoped to run a complete all-electric lap at the end of each of its stints. See the video below...

Queenslander John Martin – a well-performed sports car driver in recent times, especially at Le Mans – has missed out on a start this year after his LMP2 team, Millenium Racing, fell short of the funding it needed to take part.

'Peace' in Van Gisbergen dispute? Penske here for V8 talks
The V8 Supercar Championship resumes next weekend in Darwin, but things have been happening behind the scenes during the break.

We hear a whisper that mediation is scheduled within the next few weeks in the long-running dispute between Erebus Motorsport V8 – formerly Stone Brothers Racing – and New Zealand driver Shane Van Gisbergen.

Neither side is commenting, but it is a sign of a possible peace deal rather than the matter proceeding in the Federal Court – where it is next listed for August.

Van Gisbergen quit Stone Brothers at the end of the 2012 season, seemingly to take at least a year away from V8 Supercars.

However, he resurfaced at the start of the following season with Jonathon Webb's Tekno Autosports, for which he has won several races in a Holden Commodore.

Erebus has fielded Mercedes-Benz AMGs since taking over the Stone Bros operation that was a Ford team.

The sole race win for Erebus in V8 Supercars was scored by Lee Holdsworth, while its other driver this season is Will Davison, who was recruited this year from Ford Performance Racing.

Meanwhile, legendary American team owner Roger Penske and his lieutenant Tim Cindric are in Australia and thought to be finalising their entry into V8 Supercars next year.

It appears most likely to involve either a takeover or association with the sport's oldest team, Dick Johnson Racing.

Auto Action magazine's editor at large, Mark Fogarty, has reported this week that any deal could involve a return to V8 Supercar racing by Shell, which was a long-time backer of DJR and the series back to its days as the Australian Touring Car Championship.

Penske, who has trucking interests in Australia, has strong connections to Shell in American racing and, while he is associated with about 40 car brands in the automotive industry and racing, fields Fords in NASCAR, the biggest race series in the US.

A Penske-Shell tie-up may be enough to secure DJR's long-term future as a Ford team in Australia's major motor racing championship.

Penske has made it plain he would like to entice Marcos Ambrose, the dual V8 Supercar champion who has raced in NASCAR for almost a decade, to return to Australia if his deal with Richard Petty Motorsports is not extended beyond this year.

Irrespective of the negotiations while Penske and Cindric are in Australia, an announcement on one of the great names of world motor racing entering V8 Supercars is not anticipated for another month.

Rallycross rather than Bathurst for Euro ace Ekstom
A repeat of last year's outstanding excellent Bathurst 1000 wildcard entry for Swedish ace Mattias Ekstrom and Frenchman Yvan Muller seems out of the question this year, with Triple Eight Race Engineering not fielding a third Holden in any V8 Supercar endurance races.

Ekstrom, the multiple Race of Champions and German Touring Car Championship (DTM) winner, and Muller, a multiple world touring car champion, led the Great Race twice last year and finished in the top 10.

While Bathurst wildcard card entries can be lodged up until June 30, Triple Eight chief Roland Dane has said his outfit's deadline to put a third entry together already has passed.

Meanwhile, Ekstrom this weekend will make his first appearance in the new Rallycross World Championship's third round at Hell in Norway.

Ekstrom is entering the series with a pair of Audi S1s to be driven by him and his countryman and junior world rally champion Pontus Tidemand – and is intent on winning the title next year.

This year's Bathurst 1000 will clash with a Turkish round in the Rallycross World Championship.

Meanwhile, Canada's 1997 F1 world champion Jacques Villeneuve will take over the Peugeot 208 of his Scottish team owner Andy Scott at Hell after destroying his own while testing in Sweden midweek.

Villeneuve failed to score a point at the opening round in Portugal a month ago and missed the second round in Britain because of his return to the Indianapolis 500 he won in 1995.

The fourth round of the Rallycross World Championship will be at Kouvola in Finland in a fortnight, with Scott's Albatec Racing hoping to have Villeneuve's Peugeot rebuilt.