A select group of 24 teams grabbed a ticket to Hyperpole in a frantic, stop-start one-hour Le Mans qualifying session.
Just one hour of qualifying was available to whittle down the 62-strong field to the 24 fastest entries for Thursday night’s Hyperpole session.
Incidents marred the first half of the session, making it difficult for any of the leading cars to complete a clean lap. Peugeot made the early running but slipped down the field as times began to improve.
Just before the session drew to a conclusion, Ferrari came to fore with both Antonio Fuoco and Antonio Giovinazzi posting rapid times and finishing one-two.
Also through to tomorrow’s Hyperpole are the pair of works Toyotas, the #2 and #3 Cadillacs and the #5 Porsche.
The #6 Porsche was the high-profile casualty from Qualifying, with driver Kevin Estre unable to post a time fast enough to make it into the top 8.
Usual suspects through in LMP2
In LMP2, JOTA posted the fastest time of the session, with Team WRT just 0.002 seconds slower. Both Prema Racing cars will be in with a shot of class pole on Thursday evening together with Vector Sport, IDEC Sport and COOL Racing. Racing Team Turkey were the only Pro-Am Team to make it through to Hyperpole.
Ferrari with the upper hand in GTE Am
Richard Mille AF Corse went fastest in GTE Am right at the death, just pipping the #54 AF Corse car for provisional pole. Third-fastest was the Corvette Racing car, which recovered from an incident earlier in the session. The other teams who made it through to tomorrow’s Hyperpole session were ORT by TF, both Kessel Racing Ferraris, GMB Motorsport and AF Corse.
A full list of times is available here.
The battle for pole position is due to begin at 8pm on Thursday evening.
Image © WEC-Magazin (Walter Schruff)