Florian Niedermair
Formula 1 & Motorsport Department
Italian on paper, Austrian at heart. Most of his time is spent on Formula 1, but he also enjoys taking part in other racing series.MORE
Dries Vanthoor in the #15 BMW (teammates: Marciello/Wittmann) set the fastest lap time of the session with a lap of 3:24.465, beating the Cadillac #3 (Bourdais/van der Zande/Dixon) who finished in P2. Ferrari brought both factory cars to the Hyperpole: The #50 Ferrari (Fuoco/Molina/Nielsen) finished in P3, as did the #51 (Pier Guidi/Giovinazzi/Calado).
Toyota crashes qualifying final: Kobayashi crashes
Qualifying ended prematurely with a bang: Kamui Kobayashi, who was in fourth position at the time, hit a kerb too hard in the Porsche curves, lost control of his Toyota and ended up stranded in the gravel after spinning. Alpine #35 (Chatin/Habsburg/Milesi) caused a surprise: Pierre-Loup Chatin surprisingly brought the French brand into the pole position at Le Mans. #2 Cadillac (Lynn/Westbrook/Bamber) also made it into the Hyperpole with P6.
Porsche experienced a disappointment in qualifying. The German car brand entered six cars, including customer cars. But only one Porsche 963 made it to the Hyperpole, the #6 factory car in P8. All the others failed to make it to the mark: the Jota Porsche #12 (Ilott/Stevens/Nato) ended up in P9.
Schumacher-Alpine in the top 10, but misses Hyperpole
Mick Schumacher’s car, the Alpine #36 (Schumacher/Lapierre/Vaxiviere), finished in P10. Porsche #5 (Campbell/Christensen/Makowiecki) one place behind and the #7 Toyota (Lopez/Kobayashi/de Vries) did not make it into the top ten. Mirko Bortolotti maneuvered the best Lamborghini into P14. Peugeot did not manage to get past 16th place.
Incidents: Jean-Karl Vernay, driving the Isotta Fraschini, lost control of his car and spun around five minutes into the session. He was able to continue driving, however, allowing the Isotta to continue the session. Brendon Hartley in the #8 Toyota also spun around 20 minutes before the end of the session.
He suffered this in the first chicane on the Mulsanne straight. Lamborghini driver Mirko Bortolotti also spun. On his last qualifying lap, Kamui Kobayashi was on course for the fastest time. But the former Formula 1 driver took a kerb too hard in the Porsche corners and flew off into the gravel.
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