Ferrari Sets The Benchmark In Qualifying Practice
Ferrari, Toyota, Porsche, and Cadillac will fight for the pole position in the 24 Hours of Le Mans after an entertaining Qualifying Practice shootout littered with a few incidents and genuine excitement – not just for tomorrow’s Hyperpole session, but for the centenary race itself!
Ferrari-AF Corse and the two Ferrari 499P Hypercars lead the way after this first round of qualifying. With 30 minutes to go, Antonio Fuoco was trying just to get into the top eight and ensure a berth in the Thursday Hyperpole session – instead, he rocketed to the top of the timesheets with a time of 3’25.421.
And the Italian didn’t stop there, improving to a 3’25.213, to set the fastest time in Qualifying Practice and provisional pole position.
Alessandro Pier Guidi was just behind him aboard the #51 with a time just two-tenths of a second off Fuoco’s best. It could have been much quicker, though, had the veteran Italian not been baulked behind a GTE car in the final sector of his best lap.
Toyota Gazoo Racing’s pair of sakura-adorned Toyota GR010 Hybrids led early on, as Kamui Kobayashi’s very first lap in the #7 was the top time for much of this session – before multiple red flags disrupted the on-track action, both involving LMP2 cars.
First, about ten minutes into Qualifying Practice, Matthieu Vaxiviere and Filipe Albuquerque collided in the Ford Chicane. Albquerque was not best pleased with Vaxiviere, and the Frenchman was found to have caused the collision and the ensuing red flag. The #36 Alpine Elf Team Oreca 07-Gibson would not be permitted to take further part in the session before it ever turned a fast lap.
The red flag was lifted after 11 minutes, and on-track action resumed for a few minutes – before an uncharacteristic mistake from the typically brilliant young Dane, Malthe Jakobsen. Jakobsen slid off at Indianapolis Corner, into the tyre barriers, to bring out another red flag.
Not only was the #37 COOL Racing Oreca prohibited from taking further part, but a time set by Jakobsen that likely would have sent him to Hyperpole, was deleted for causing a red flag.
After another seven and a half minutes under the red flag, Qualifying Practice continued with no further interruptions.
Kobayashi’s time was knocked off the top spot but was still good enough for third place, ahead of Brendon Hartley in the #8 Toyota, who was fourth-fastest.
Porsche Penske Motorsports sent two of its three cars into Hyperpole, the #5 and #75, courtesy of some fast times from WEC star Frederic Makowiecki in the #5, and IMSA star Felipe Nasr in the #75.
Kevin Estre tried to put all three of the factory Porsche 963s into the pole shootout, but he just couldn’t get a clean lap in during the final minutes – and the #6 Porsche 963 will be left to start ninth on Saturday afternoon.
Estre’s efforts coming just short allowed both of the Cadillac Racing V-Series.Rs, operated by Chip Ganassi Racing, to make it to Hyperpole. Hometown hero Sebastien Bourdais was seventh aboard the gold #3, and Earl Bamber held on to the final transfer spot in the blue #2 at the very end.
Just 0.807 seconds covered the cars which advanced to Hypercar Hyperpole. It is, as they say, game on.
On the other side of the cut line, Peugeot TotalEnergies will be left to lick its wounds after the streamlined Peugeot 9X8 – a design tailor-made to Le Mans’ long straights and fast curves – failed to make the sharp end of the grid.
Mikkel Jensen’s time in the #93 and Loic Duval’s time in the #94 started off fourth and fifth-fastest after the opening minutes, but neither car could improve and both tumbled down to tenth and eleventh.
Both Glickenhaus Racing 007s outqualified the Floyd Vanwall Racing Team Vandervell 680, in the battle of the two privateer hypercar manufacturers. Glickenhaus Racing’s #708 will start 13th, the #709 14th, and the #4 Vanwall in 15th.
Hertz Team JOTA had a lost session after a hybrid system issue caused Antonio Felix da Costa to crawl slowly around the track in the opening minutes, and return to spend most of the session in the garage for diagnostics and repairs. The gold #38 Porsche 963 will start from the tail of the 16-car Hypercar field on Saturday but it was able to return to the track for a lap at the very end.
As it is, Hypercar Hyperpole looks like must-watch entertainment – but do not overlook what LMP2 brings to the table in terms of action, after the top four cars in the class were covered by less than a tenth of a second after 60 minutes!
Just like Free Practice 1 earlier today, Pietro Fittipaldi was quickest again aboard the #28 JOTA Oreca – this salvaged some dignity for the British team after its Porsche 963 had its troubles one class up.
Fittipaldi’s time of 3’34.751 bested the top time from Louis Deletraz in the #41 Team WRT Oreca by just two milliseconds. It wasn’t for pole position – barring some sort of ‘act of god’ tomorrow – but imagine the scenes if we get another close fight like this tomorrow!
Also making it through to the Hyperpole stage were Prema Racing’s two cars – a late flyer from Mirko Bortolotti got him up to third in the #63, while the #9 of Bent Viscaal held on to the transfer spot in eighth.
IDEC Sport’s Delage-sponsored #48 Oreca made it through courtesy of Paul-Loup Chatin, so too did Vector Sport’s #10 with Gabriel Aubry.
While the #37 COOL Racing Oreca lost its chance to progress, Reshad de Gerus in the #47 salvaged some dignity for the French team and made it into the top eight in Jakobsen’s place.
Ben Hanley in the #14 Nielsen Racing Oreca was in the top eight for a long while but found himself outside the top eight at the chequered flag.
But after qualifying concluded, there was a sudden turn of events: Dries Vanthoor had failed to slow sufficiently within the required time during the second red flag – and the #923 Racing Team Turkey had its fastest time deleted. This dropped the #923 out of the top eight, and put Hanley and Nielsen Racing back in!
Not taking part, of course, was the #13 Tower Motorsports Oreca. After Steven Thomas’ crash in FP1, the chassis is being replaced and the team will not take any further part in today’s on-track activities.
The LMGTE Am class might have caused its fair share of interruption for the one-hour qualifying session, but a flat-out sprint in the dying minutes gave us a thrilling prospect for Hyperpole.
As others were winding down, Alessio Rovera found a quiet lap to steal provisional pole position for Richard Mille AF Corse, the #83 Ferrari 488 GTE EVO posting a 3’51.877, shaving three hundredths off Davide Rigon’s previous best in class for AF Corse, the #54 car’s 3’51.914 making it another AF Corse Ferrari 1-2 qualifier, mirroring the Hypercar order.
The two early red flag sessions had delayed the completion of any GTE Am timed laps, so the field was under some pressure to pull things together.
Jonas Reid almost complicated things further by backing his #88 Proton Porsche into the tyre wall at the Dunlop Curves, rear-end damage visible, but the car carried forward and the red flag was kept away.
Michelle Gatting also made the classic Dunlop Curves pirouette in the #85 Iron Dames Porsche – without contact – but the pink car pulled up on the approach to Mulsanne Corner, adding to another slow zone just created by the #56 Project 1–AO Porsche that further depleted Porsche’s showing.
Further to its earlier off-track excursion in Free Practice 1, Nicky Catsburg’s Corvette C8.R was off the pace and had spent significant time in its garage, recording only a couple of laps for the session.
But with three minutes to go the Dutchman blitzed through on a clear lap to clear Charlie Eastwood’s best in the #25 ORT By TF Aston Martin by two-tenths: 3’52.228, third-quickest for the #33 Corvette.
“The car had quite a bit of damage,” said Ben Keating. “The rules meant we had to change the seatbelts, which is a big job. The red flags helped, but we didn’t know if we could do it. You could see from the onboard camera the car was difficult to drive and the team has done an incredible job to give Nicky a car he could deliver a time from.”
Both Kessel Racing Ferraris made it through to Hyperpole, Daniel Serra fifth-fastest in the CarGuy yellow #57, and Kei Cozzolino’s late dash put the Ponos black and orange #74 car into the final slot for tomorrow evening’s shoot-out.
GMB Motorsport’s Aston Martin is looking solid and stealthy, Marco Sorensen delivering a top-three time earlier in the session that would still stand for sixth place.
No Porsches will feature, however. Alessio Picariello just missed the cut for Iron Lynx in the #60, and Julien Andlauer’s #77 Dempsey-Proton Porsche was uncharacteristically off the pace. Alex Riberas also missed the target in the #98 NorthWest AMR Aston Martin.
A replacement Aston Martin Vantage AMR is being shipped from the UK to replace the heavily damaged D’station Racing entry, the only car absent from the session.
Mike Rockenfeller had the ‘qualifying’ honours for Hendrick Motorsports, posting a 3’47.976 early in the hour. The car circulated without drama in the Garage 56 Invitation class, and the gap in pace between the #24 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 Le Mans Special and the fastest GTE Am cars is growing at a staggering amount!
QUALIFYING PRACTICE RESULTS >>>
The on-track action is far from over tonight: Free Practice 2 will give teams ample opportunity for their drivers to run under cover of night, starting at 22:00 local time.
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