'Le Mans tougher than WRC'

The Scot will be sharing last year's category winning Ferrari 550 Maranello with former BTCC champions Rickard Rydell and Peter Kox, and was satisfied with his performance despite conceding that he will need to prepare himself for the physical strain of the three hour stint come June's race.

"It's been a good day and my lap times have been getting a bit closer to the other guys in the car which was my goal today," McRae said. "Bearing in mind we lost quite a bit of time this morning for the engine problem, I'm pleased with the time I did in the end.

"Physically, I was beginning to feel it a bit after the end of an hour, across the shoulders, and the race stints are going to be two or even three hours. It's more physical than driving a rally car but I enjoyed the challenge of that and don't think it's going to cause me any problems.

"I'd been sent a video of some in-car footage of the track which helped me learn where everything was. This morning I knew I was having some difficulty with the braking points, but also knew where I was losing time, so we compared the telemetry of car 66 to my laps and it was straight away better this afternoon."