Hypercar
Alpine outpaced Cadillac by 0.013s in qualifying for the Le Mans 24 Hours, as last year’s winner, the #83 Ferrari, failed to make the top 15 and will therefore miss out on Hyperpole.
Tom Gamble’s opening effort with the #007 Aston Martin Valkyrie was faster than anyone’s, as he lapped in 3m24.163s, which only Earl Bamber’s benchmark outperformed in Free Practice 1.
Rivals cars swiftly closed in without matching the Briton’s time, and so 15 minutes into the half-hour session, the top seven cars were contained within three-tenths of a second – featuring the sister #009 Aston Martin (Alex Riberas), the #12 Cadillac (Louis Deletraz), the #20 BMW (Rene Rast), the #35 Alpine (Ferdinand Habsburg), the #101 Cadillac (Jordan Taylor) and the #38 Cadillac (Sebastien Bourdais).
With the top 15 to be qualified for Hyperpole, Frederic Makowiecki’s #36 Alpine and the Peugeots driven by Malthe Jakobsen and Stoffel Vandoorne were at risk of not making the cut. In the #83 AF Corse Ferrari, Phil Hanson was just two tenths clear of the danger zone.
The pecking order subsequently became increasingly tight, with Sebastien Buemi’s #8 Toyota and Kevin Magnussen’s #15 BMW joining the fray of the fastest nine cars within 0.3s, while improvement from Makowiecki and Vandoorne left the #83 Ferrari – which put two wheels on the grass exiting the Forest Esses – and the #19 Genesis (Daniel Juncadella) vulnerable.
Gamble was eventually outpaced – significantly – by several cars, the fastest of which turned out to be Habsburg’s #35 Alpine, whose last-gasp effort – a 3m23.135s – beat Deletraz’ #12 Jota Cadillac by just 0.013s.
The #101 WTR Cadillac driven by Taylor was third, two tenths down, followed by Rast’s #20 BMW, Bourdais’ #38 Jota Cadillac and Magnussen’s #15 BMW.
Hanson did not make it out of the danger zone in the #83 Ferrari, with his best attempt a 3m25.495s, half a second slower than Vandoorne’s #93 Peugeot and only narrowly avoiding last place – Jakobsen’s #94 Peugeot was only 0.165s slower.
The two factory Ferraris qualified for Hyperpole, albeit by less than half a second.
Pin puts Duqueine on top in LMP2
#30 Duqueine Team Oreca 07 Gibson: Doriane Pin, Julien Andlauer, Richard Verschoor
Photo by: Rainier Ehrhardt
Doriane Pin dominated the joint 30-minute qualifying session for LMP2 and LMGT3 cars, setting the fastest time in the intermediate prototype category.
The Peugeot Hypercar reserve lapped the Circuit de la Sarthe in 3m34.662s, ending up more than half a second clear in the #30 Duqueine Oreca.
The battle boiled down to a straight fight between Pin and Ian Aguilera in the #37 CLX Motorsport Oreca 07, with the pair trading the top spot in the 30-minute session.
Silver-rated Aguilera appeared to have secured the top spot after setting a time of 3m35.229s, but Pin broke the track record in LMP2 to snatch the top spot with 10 minutes left on the clock.
Aguilera remained in second place, while Bijoy Garg propelled the #343 Inter Europol Oreca to third place towards the end of qualifying.
Louis Rousset was fourth-fastest for Panis Racing, while Ryan Cullen completed the top five for Vector Sport.
Only four cars did not progress into Hyperpole 1. Those were the #16 Proton Competition Oreca which missed much of the opening practice, the #17 Algarve Pro entry, the #48 RD Limited and the #3 DKR Engineering.
Corvette fastest in LMGT3
#34 Racing Team Turkey by TF Corvette Z06 LMGT3.R: Peter Dempsey, Salih Yoluc, Charlie Eastwood
Photo by: Marc Fleury
Peter Dempsey led the way for TF Sport in the LMGT3 class, topping the first qualifying session by just two-tenths of a second from Proton’s Eric Powell.
About halfway through the session, the Irishman set a best time of 3m55.744s in the full-season #34 Corvette Z06 GT3.R entry, which put him over a second ahead of the #74 Kessel Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 of Dustin Blattner.
While several improvements followed over the final minutes, Dempsey held on to the top spot, with Powell ending up closest in the #77 Proton Ford Mustang GT3.
Gray Newell put the #23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 in third place, while James Cottingham finished fourth in the best of the two Manthey Porsche 911 GT3 Rs. Completing the top five was Darren Leung in the #32 WRT BMW M4 GT3.
Fifteen out of the 25 cars progressed into Hyperpole 1, with neither of the two Garage 59 McLaren 720S GT3s making the cut. The Spa-winning #10 car qualified by Antares Ru could only manage the 17th quickest lap time, while Alexander West ended up 23rd in the sister entry.
Qualifying results – Hypercar
Hypercar qualifying
All Stats
Qualifying results – LMP2/LMGT3
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– The Autosport.com Team
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