Stoffel Vandoorne told media, including Motorsport Week, at a briefing before the 24 Hours of Le Mans that getting out of the pits early in qualifying while the track is quiet will be crucial to getting a spot in the Hyperpole session.
“Finding a clear lap is already is one of the hardest things in Le Mans,” said the #94 Peugeot driver.
“Usually for the Hypercars, the biggest chance of having a clear lap is at the start of the session, when you do that that first lap. But then again, it also depends on your pit lane position and for the moment, we’re a bit far [back] in the pit lane.
“That means that there’s probably gonna be a lot of cars ahead of us, which we’re not sure – with tyre warm-up being quite difficult – we’re not sure that we can actually clear all of them before we start our laps.
“So that’s making things a little bit more complicated, but there are clear trends. I think everyone analyses those sessions quite deeply to try and figure out when is the best time to go.
“But at the end of the day, you also need a little bit of luck, to get through it in the right places.”
Qualifying will take place on Wednesday 12 June at 7pm local time, where 62 cars across three categories will attempt to progress to the Hyperpole shootout on the following day by residing in the top-eight positions in their respective category.
Despite the fact Hyperpole was adopted for the full FIA World Endurance Championship for 2024, the format was previously and only implemented for the 24 Hours of Le Mans since 2021.
During each of the qualifying practice (Q1) sessions, a large majority of the field is seen making their way onto the track early in order to find free space to conduct their flying lap times.
Most of the cars consisting of endurance prototypes and GT cars, or this year Hypercars, LMP2s and LMGT3s for the first time, find themselves intruding on each other’s first flying lap regardless of the intention to seek clear space.
BMW M Team WRT are situated the nearest to the pit lane exit, followed nearby from Lamborghini Iron Lynx, supposedly enabling them to exit first out of the Hypercar teams.
Ferrari are in the front third of the pitlane allocation, while Porsche are in the second, roughly just over half way down. However, Peugeot are towards the back, while Toyota have retained their usual position of one of the last teams in the pitlane.
With tyre warmers not being used at this year’s 92nd running of Le Mans, Hypercar drivers will look to find clear space to carry out competitive lap times, with the Circuit de la Sarthe’s track evolution expected to be stable though not drastically different over the course of the hour.
