Dries Vanthoor was fastest in the qualifying session for the 24 Hours of Le Mans, setting a 3:24.465 in the #15 BMW Team WRT M Hybrid V8.
This puts the car and team in a great position for the Hyperpole session to decide the top-eight tomorrow.
Second was Sebastien Bourdais in the #3 Cadillac V-Series.R, 0.177 off Vanthoor, while #50 Ferrari 499P’s Antonio Fuoco was third, a further 0.089 off.
At the start of the session, the three Ferraris were initially the quickest, with Fuoco setting a 3:25.321, a tenth up on his teammate in the #51 Ferrari, Alessandro Pier Guidi, with the third ‘customer’ Ferrari, the #83, third at the time with Yifei Ye at the wheel.
However, pretty soon the other manufacturers began to set their own fast laps. #7 Toyota GR010 Hybrid’s Kamui Kobayashi first topped the timesheets, with Fuoco then beating it.
Bourdais then set his 3:24.642 to go quickest for Cadillac. This time stood at the top for much of the session, but late on, Vanthoor came through to set his lap almost two tenths ahead of Bourdais.
In fourth, Kobayashi was just 0.023 slower than Fuoco. However, with just over 2 minutes remaining, the Japanese driver, pushing hard to go quicker, spun at the exit of Porsche Curves and beached his Toyota in the gravel.
This caused a red flag and ended the session a little early. There is an investigation into #7 Toyota’s laps and a question over whether they will keep their fastest lap.
Fifth was Paul-Loup Chatin in the #35 Alpine A424, with Alex Lynn sixth in the #2 Cadillac. Pier Guidi in the #51 Ferrari was seventh, followed by Kevin Estre in the #6 Porsche 963, rounding out the top 8 cars which will compete for pole position on Thursday.
Jakobsen fastest in LMP2
COOL Racing’s Malthe Jakobsen was fastest in qualifying for the 24 Hours of Le Mans in the LMP2 class, with the young Dane setting a 3:32.827 in the #37 COOL Racing Oreca 07-Gibson to put him and team in a prime position for Hyperpole on Thursday, which will decide the class pole and order of the top eight.
Louis Deletraz, on board the #14 AO by TF Oreca 07-Gibson, was second fastest, just over three tenths off Jakobsen. Third went to Ben Hanley in the #23 United Autosports USA Oreca 07-Gibson, a further 0.296 off Deletraz.
The Swiss driver in the AO by TF ‘Spike’ car set the initial fastest lap for the LMP2 class, and he remained top for much of the session. With less than 30 mins of the hour remaining, however, Jakobsen found space in amongst the traffic to set his lap and claim the top spot, demoting Deletraz to runner-up.
Panis Racing’s Mathias Beche was fourth in the #65 Panis Racing Oreca 07-Gibson, almost four tenths slower than Hanley and exactly one second off Jakobsen.
In fifth was Job van Uitert in the #28 IDEC Sport Oreca 07-Gibson, again almost four tenths away from Beche in front.
Patrick Pilet was sixth in the #10 Vector Sport Oreca 07-Gibson, while Laurent Horr was seventh in the #33 DKR Engineering Oreca 07-Gibson. In eighth, the last car to get into Hyperpole, was Oliver Jarvis, on board the #22 United Autosports Oreca 07-Gibson.
Editor’s Note
All of the qualifying laps in the #7 Toyota GR010 Hybrid have been deleted since driver and team principal Kamui Kobayashi caused the red flag.
