Allan McNish has endured a poor start to the Le Mans Series season.

McNish, the triple American Le Mans Series champion who has opted to take part in the European event this year, was a lowly fifth in his Audi R10 TDi at the end of a 1,000km race in Barcelona.

A puncture and broken alternator belt in quick succession cost the Scot the lead two hours into the race after he had started third on the 47-car grid.

Following repairs that cost McNish and co-driver Dindo Capello seven laps, they rejoined the race in 17th overall and 11th in class.

The duo then battled their way through the field to claim fifth at the end of the 215-lap, six-hour series opener in front of a 28,000 crowd.

"To have any chance of a victory we had to attack immediately," McNish said.

"I was able to snatch second place at the start and at a yellow (flag) the team did a stunning job to leapfrog me ahead of the leading Peugeot.

"I was able to control the race and pull out a little gap to the Peugeot, but unfortunately we got a puncture on the left rear.

"About 10 laps afterwards, the alternator belt broke costing us six laps in the pits which effectively put us out of contention.

"However, we fought hard for the remaining four hours and came back to fifth position.

"We are currently not quite fast enough and we also have a couple of reliability issues. We all must work hard before the next race."

Nicolas Minassian and Marc Gene took the honours in their Peugeot, with the second Audi of Mike Rockenfeller and Alexandre Premat in second.

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