On his way to scoring Porsche’s 19th pole position at Le Mans, Kevin Estre had to overtake a Oliver Jarvis in the #22 United Autosports Oreca 07-Gibson into the first part of Indianapolis, or risk losing the lap, he related to reporters after the Hyperpole session.
“I had a very nice slipstream from an LMP2 on the way to Indy, but I had to overtake him into Indy 1,” said the Frenchman.
“He didn’t really want to, so he blocked me a little bit. I came in from the inside, so it was really not easy. But happy I managed that.”
While the Indianapolis corner, which is a banked left hander, named after the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, is a famous corner on the Le Mans circuit, the first part Estre mentions is crucial. It’s a fast, sweeping right hander which is crucial set up for the Indianapolis corner proper.
“If I hadn’t passed him into Indy 1, I think it would have cost me a few tenths, and would definitely not be the pole,” he told Motorsport Week. So I had to pass him, but on the other hand, he was flat out. I was flat out and it was just a timing thing. We made it just in time but we arrived side by side.
“So it was quite hot for me to commit to Indy 1 on the inside, knowing it was my quali lap and it was my last lap and it was a good. So I lost a bit of time there, but I gained in the slipstream before. So in the end it was maybe a give and take sort of thing.”
However, while Estre knew it was a good lap, he didn’t know how good it was until he crossed the line.
“Yeah, it felt good. But in this championship, with this competition, you never know if it’s good enough.
“I knew I optimised everything on our car and there was not much left really, but on the other hand, there’s a lot of good drivers, a lot of good cars around there, so I didn’t know what what they were doing.
“But when my engineer told me that I’m on pole straight after the line, I dropped the speed and save fuel. I knew, okay, this is something really cool.”
And finally, while Estre was okay for time to do two laps after the red flag in Hyperpole from Dries Vanthoor’s crash in the #15 BMW, is #6 Porsche was very tight on fuel for the lap, and had to back off hugely on his in-lap back to the pits to make it.
“I mean, in time [to do two flying laps] we were okay. But in fuel, we were really tight as you could see. I think in my in-lap, it was quite slow. It was not really to say hello to all the marshals. It was just because we didn’t have much fuel in it!”
