Courage paddle their way forwards.

British racing driver Christian Vann, this weekend driving for Courage Competition at the Monza 1000km, was a happy chap after qualifying on Saturday when the Courage team qualified in fifth place.

With paddle shift now in place and fully functional, Vann reckoned it makes a real difference and is, in his words, 'mega'.

"I wouldn't have believed the difference that it could make, its now almost as much fun as my driving games," he said of driving the Courage-Judd he shares with Alexander Frei and Jean-Mark Gounon.

Qualifying saw the team place the fifth fastest time with a 1min 39.832sec lap, but it could have been better. "The lap was so fast, at the end of sector 3, actually 0.430 secs faster than Shimodas pole lap, but slow traffic in the all important last 40 secs of the track, which includes the extremely long, fast Parabolica curve, lost it for us, leaving us 1.47 seconds down, looking at a trouble free lap could have put us on pole by over half a second," he explained.