BMW Tops Qualifying as Hyperpole Spots Decided

BMW shocked its Hypercar rivals by snatching fastest time in Wednesday evening’s Qualifying Practice ahead of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, as the eight cars progressing to Hyperpole in each class were decided.

Dries Vanthoor delivered the fastest lap of the one-hour session of 3:24.465 at the wheel of the No. 15 BMW M Hybrid V8 with less than 10 minutes left on the clock to go 0.177 seconds up on Cadillac Racing’s Sebastien Bourdais.

That was before a red flag for an off for Toyota driver Kamui Kobayashi at the exit of the final Porsche Curve caused a red flag with a little over two minutes left on the clock. The session was not resumed thereafter.

Bourdais’ early effort of 3:24.642 aboard the No. 3 Cadillac V-Series.R stood as the fastest time for most of the session before Vanthoor’s last-ditch improvement, and was good enough for second.

Third-fastest was the best of the Ferrari 499Ps, the No. 50 machine in which Antonio Fuoco posted a best time of 3:24.731, 0.266 seconds off the pace.

Kobayashi had set a time good enough for fourth in the No. 7 Toyota GR010 Hybrid before his spin, and had looked on course to go fastest of all with overall best times in the first and second sectors.

However, the No. 7 car was later stripped of all of its qualifying laps as a result of Kobayashi causing the stoppage, costing the Japanese manufacturer its place in Hyperpole as Brendon Hartley had only gone 12th-fastest in the sister No. 8 car.

Kobayashi’s misfortune, which means he will start from the back of the Hypercar grid on Saturday, promoted Alpine to fourth place, as Paul-Loup Chatin had set a lap good enough for fifth aboard the No. 35 A424.

The No. 2 Cadillac of Alex Lynn – which has a five-place grid penalty hanging over it from the previous FIA World Endurance Championship round at Spa – moved up to fifth ahead of the No. 51 Ferrari of Alessandro Pier Guidi and the No. 6 Porsche Penske Motorsport entry of Kevin Estre.

The No. 6 car was the only member of the six-car Porsche stable to progress to Hyperpole until Kobayashi was stripped of his laps, which promoted Callum Ilott’s No. 12 Hertz Team JOTA car to the eighth and final spot.

Completing the top 10, and missing out on Hyperpole, were the No. 36 Alpine of Nicolas Lapierre and Matt Campbell in the No. 5 Penske Porsche.

Besides Toyota, the other manufacturers to miss out on Hyperpole were Lamborghini, Peugeot and Isotta Fraschini.

The best of the Lamborghini SC63s, the No. 63 car of Mirko Bortolotti, was 13th following Kobayashi losing his laps, while Peugeot’s top car, the No. 93 9X8, could only muster 15th in the hands of Jean-Eric Vergne.

Isotta’s solo Tipo 6 Competizione was 22nd with Jean-Karl Vernay at the wheel.

Cool Racing, Proton Competition On Top in LMP2, LMGT3

Pole position in the LMP2 class went to Cool Racing’s No. 37 Oreca 07 Gibson as Peugeot reserve driver Malthe Jakobsen set the pace.

Jakobsen turned in a best lap of 3:32.827 to go nearly three tenths clear of the opposition, which was led by the No. 14 AO by TF Sport car of Louis Deletraz.

Ben Hanley took the third-fastest time in the No. 23 United Autosports entry, followed by Mathias Beche in the No. 65 Panis Racing Oreca and Job van Uitert in the No. 28 IDEC Sport car.

The remaining Hyperpole spots were sealed by Vector Sport, DKR Engineering and the No. 22 United Autosports car, with four of the eight fastest cars in LMP2 entered for the Pro-Am subclass.

In LMGT3, Ben Barker’s early benchmark of 3:55.263 proved to be good enough to top the new-for-2024 class in the No. 77 Proton Competition Ford Mustang GT3.

Barker’s time was enough to knock Frederik Schandorff’s No. 70 Inception Racing McLaren 720S GT3 Evo off the top of the times by just under two tenths, with a subsequent improvement for Schandorff leaving him 0.143 seconds shy.

Remarkably, the top seven times in the new class were occupied by seven different manufacturers, as Daniel Juncadella went third-fastest in the No. 82 TF Sport Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R.

He was followed by Franck Perera’s Iron Lynx Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2, Klaus Bachler’s Manthey PureRxcing Porsche 911 GT3 R and Alex Riberas in the Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo.

Aston was the only manufacturer to get two cars into Hyperpole as Marco Sorensen bagged the eighth and final spot for D’station Racing behind the JMW Motorsport Ferrari 296 GT3 of Larry ten Voorde.

The only manufacturers to miss out on Hyperpole were Lexus, whose top representative was 10th-fastest, and BMW, which could only manage a best of 12th.

GR Racing’s Ferrari didn’t set a lap in qualifying due to an ECU problem.

RESULTS: Qualifying Practice