Allan McNish is determined to erase the heartbreak of last year's Le Mans 24 Hours, but fears Peugeot will strike the latest bitter blow.

McNish, along with co-drivers Dindo Capello and seven-times winner Tom Kristensen, were coasting to victory 12 months ago in their diesel-powered Audi after 16 and a half hours.

The trio - even with McNish suffering from a stomach bug - had led for almost the entire race around the 8.47-mile Le Sarthe circuit.

But the endurance classic has a nasty habit of catching you cold when you least expect it, and so it proved as a faulty wheel nut sent Capello - on his 43rd birthday - crashing out.

McNish, who starts from fourth on the grid, said: "It didn't rankle with me until recently when everybody started talking about it again.

"But there were two sides to last year's story because as a team I felt we had a perfect race.

"We were superb, and I don't think we will get another race like that for a long, long time.

"It's not very often where everything falls into place, and every decision you make is right.

"But on the other side, it hurt for a long time, there's no doubt about that. It grated because it was an opportunity missed.

"All you can do is lick your wounds, pick yourself up and on you go again.

"But last year proved to me you can do everything so right, and it can go so wrong in the space of 10 seconds."

The accident allowed another Audi trio of Marco Werner, Emanuele Pirro and Frank Biela to claim their second successive win, and seventh in eight years for the German manufacturing giants.

But this year's 76th running of the event promises to be a very different affair if Peugeot live up to their rich promise shown in the Le Mans Series races this year.

The French marque have dominated, with their pace in qualifying for this event ensuring they occupy the front three positions on the grid ahead of tomorrow's 2pm (BST) start.

Stephane Sarrazin, who is partnered by Pedro Lamy and Alex Wurz, set a new lap record on Wednesday of three minutes 18.513 seconds.

Behind him on the grid come the sister diesel-powered Peugeot 908s of Franck Montagny, Ricardo Zonta and Christian Klien, followed by Jacques Villeneuve, Marc Gene and Nicolas Minassian.

Villeneuve, former Formula One world champion and Indy 500 winner, has a second crack at becoming only the second man in motor sport history to win all three prestigious events behind the late Graham Hill.

When asked about the matter, the Canadian said: "The political answer would be to say 'statistics don't matter'.

"But actually, at the end of the day, they can. They don't matter at the time, and I don't think about it much when I'm racing, but then you go home and it's always nice to think about.

"Your children will ask questions about your career and if you can say 'yeah, I did this and won this and this' they look at you with big eyes and they're proud of that.

"My son is too young yet for this, but the time will come and I think it could end up being quite special, so statistics do matter in the end."

It remains to be seen whether Peugeot's race pace can match that in qualifying, and whether they have the reliability to match Audi throughout the 24 hours.

McNish, anxious to add to his only win in this event now 10 years ago, added: "I have to say they (Peugeot) are favourites, no question.

"But from what I've seen so far, they have made mistakes in LMS races when they have been put under pressure.

"So if they do have any slip-ups for whatever reason, then we will be there.

"I can tell you they are going to have to be very good to beat us, so I think the whole thing is set up to be an absolutely titanic battle."

More news from SportingLife.com