Porsche starts the 24 Hours of Le Mans from pole position. Kevin Estre, who shares the #6 Porsche with Andre Lotterer and Laurens Vanthoor, prevailed in a heart-stopping finale against a Cadillac duo. Alex Lynn (#2; teammates: Bamber/Palou) and Sebastien Bourdais (#3; van der Zande/Dixon) missed pole position by less than two tenths of a second, while BMW driver Dries Vanthoor (#15; Marciello/Wittmann) crashed in the Hyperpole session after setting the fastest time in qualifying.
Qualifying began 35 minutes late because a serious accident during the supporting program destroyed the track barriers and had to be replaced. After the first timed lap, everything pointed to a Ferrari pole. But the Scuderia had to make do with positions 4 and 5.
Both 499Ps were at the top of the timesheets after their first attempt. But unlike the Cadillac, Ferrari stuck to two push laps, while Bourdais drove a third fast lap. On this, the former Formula 1 driver broke the 3:25 mark. A red flag seemed to play into Cadillac’s hands, as it caught the #50 Ferrari of Antonio Fuoco (Molina/Nielsen) on what was supposed to be a pole lap.
The reason for the interruption: After setting the fastest lap time in qualifying on Wednesday, Dries Vanthoor in the #15 BMW (teammates: Marciello/Wittmann) made a serious mistake in the Hyperpole session in the Indianapolis corner and crashed into the tire stack.
Heart-stopping finale in Le Mans qualifying: Porsche defeats Cadillac
After the session restarted, Bourdais did not take part in the session anymore because he had no more fuel available. Neither Ferrari could challenge the time of the #3 Cadillac, but others took advantage of the last lap: First, Cadillac brand colleague Alex Lynn just beat Bourdais’ time, a few seconds later Estre went 0.148 seconds faster with a time of 3:24.634.
But the #2 Cadillac will not start from the front row despite qualifying in second place. Due to a penalty from the 6-hour race in Spa, the car will receive a five-place penalty and will only start the race from seventh place. This means that the sister car #3 will move up.
Behind the Porsche, the Bourdais-Cadillac and the two Ferraris, the Alpine #35, driven by Paul-Loup Chatin in the Hyperpole qualifying (teammates: Habsburg/Milesi), starts the race from P5. The BMW #15 starts the 24 Hours of Le Mans from P6. Because Vanthoor had raised a red flag, all of his lap times were disallowed. Behind him, only the #12 Jota Porsche finished, which was unable to take part in the Hyperpole qualifying and starts the 24-hour race from P8.
The Porsche customer team’s car was completely destroyed in an accident involving Callum Ilott on Wednesday in FP2. After a chassis change, it is a race against time as to whether the team can even take part in the 24-hour race. A start in the Hyperpole session was out of the question.
LMGT3 class: McLaren and Manthey-Porsche on the first row
In the new LMGT3 class, pole position went to McLaren for the first time: Brendan Iribe drove the #70 McLaren 720 S GT3 from Inception Racing (Iribe, Millroy, Schandorff) to first place on the grid. The 44-year-old American needed 3:38.120 minutes for his best lap. After a spin and a red flag in the last seven minutes, Iribe was the only driver to improve his lap time again – although his first run would have been enough for P1.
The #92 Porsche 911 GT3 R from Manthey (Malykhin, Sturm, Bachler) will be joining the McLaren on the first row. This means that racing cars from Zuffenhausen will be on the first row in both categories. Bronze driver Alexander Malykhin initially led the classification until the Belarusian had to admit defeat. The Manthey Porsche, which leads the World Championship in the LMGT3 class by a large margin, was 0.808 seconds behind in the end.
While the #92 Manthey Porsche made it into the Hypercar round in qualifying on Wednesday, the sister car with starting number #91 (Shahin, Schuring, Lietz) missed the top 8: The trio around Austrian Richard Lietz will start from 16th place in the class.
Things did not go as hoped for the two BMW M4 GT3s from WRT: Neither of the two Munich-based GT3 cars managed to make it into the Hyperpole. The #46 (Al-Harthy, Rossi, Martin) driven by motorsport superstar Valentino Rossi started the race from twelfth place on the grid. The #31 sister BMW (Leung, Gelael, Farfus) had to settle for P15.
According to the regulations, drivers in the FIA Bronze category in the GT3 class must take part in the Hyperpole qualifying. Giacomo Petrobelli got into the #66 Ferrari 296 from JMW Motorsport (Petrobelli, Yoluc, Ten Voorde) and drove the Italian sports car to third place on the grid. With a personal best time of 3:58.938 minutes, the Italian was only one hundredth of a second behind Malykhin’s 911.
The German team Proton Competition took fourth place on the grid with the #77 Ford Mustang GT3 (Hardwick, Robichon, Barker). The #27 Aston Martin from Heart of Racing (James, Mancinelli, Riberas) completed the top five. This meant that cars from five different brands were in the top positions.
LMP2 class: Purple LMP2 car on pole position
The #14 LMP2 of AO by TF Racing (Hyett, Deletraz, Quinn) prevailed in a thrilling final finish to take pole position in the class that has returned to the WEC for Le Mans only. This puts the purple prototype, nicknamed ‘Spike’, in P1. Hyperpole driver Louis Deletraz’s best time of 3:33.217 minutes was just 0.610 seconds faster than second-placed Job van Uitert in the #28 of IDEC Sport (Lafargue, Van Uitert, De Gerus).
The second row in the LMP2 class is shared by the #65 Panis Racing (Sales, Beche, Huffaker) and the strong #23 United Autosports (Keating, Albuquerque, Hanley) of McLaren boss Zak Brown.