 By winning the 1998 FIA GT Championship , Mercedes were awarded a single guaranteed entry for Le Mans , which was assigned to Gounon , Tiemann , and Webber in CLR No. 4 . Bouchut , Dumbreck , and Heidfeld in the No. 5 and Lagorce , Lamy , and Schneider in the No. 6 entries would have to pre @-@ qualify for the event , while No. 4 was free to use the pre @-@ qualifying session for testing purposes . Pre @-@ qualifying involved all 62 entry applicant teams setting lap times over a long session . The final entry for Le Mans would be made of 48 cars , combining guaranteed entries and the fastest cars in pre @-@ qualifying within their respective classes ; the prototype category , combining LMP and LMGTP cars , only allowed 28 cars from 31 entries . Competitors in the prototype category for 1999 included factory @-@ supported LMGTP programmes from Toyota and Audi , and LMP entries from Nissan , BMW , Audi , and Panoz . Toyota set the fastest pre @-@ qualifying time overall , followed by Panoz and BMW . Mercedes No. 6 was the sixth fastest car , while Nos. 4 and 5 were 14th and 15th respectively . Although the cars succeeded in passing pre @-@ qualifying , one CLR suffered a setback when a suspension linkage was torn from the front of the monocoque . The suspension failure was the first major fault suffered by the CLRs since their testing debut in February . 
