McNish on pole for Sebring

An accident just eight minutes in resulted in organisers deciding to abort qualifying and form the grid based on the best times in practice.

That means McNish will lead away the field in his Audi R10 TDI, despite the fact the Scot had just been relegated to second in the classification when the accident occurred at the Florida circuit.

American-based Ben Devlin, from Norwich, remarkably walked away unscathed from his wrecked Lola, a testament to the strength of the cars.

A surprised McNish, bidding for his third win in the 56th running of the annual sportscar endurance race, said: "It was a bizarre qualifying session.

"I posted a good lap at the start of qualifying and initially held pole, but lost it just before the session was red flagged.

"Personally I don't think it was right to cancel the qualifying times, but we'll start from pole position, and I aim to stay in front in the race.

"I guess it proves you have to be on it all of the time and be consistently fast in every session."

McNish and Italian Dindo Capello, winners of the LM P1 American Le Mans Series titles for the past two years, are joined by record seven-time Le Mans winner Tom Kristensen in their Audi.

In what is expected to be a bitter battle, the diesel-powered Peugeot 908 of Stephane Sarrazin, Pedro Lamy and Nic Minassian joins McNish on the front row.

The second 'factory' diesel Audi, driven by German trio Lucas Luhr, Mike Rockenfeller and Marco Werner, lines-up third on the 35-car grid for the race which is scheduled to start at 2.05pm GMT.