Le Mans 24 Hours: Audi leads red-flagged warm-up

The 45-minute session had barely got going when the first red flags came out, as Paul-Loup Chatin put the #23 Panis-Barthez Competition Ligier in the gravel at the Porsche Curves.

At that stage, Loic Duval led the way in the #8 Audi, having completed a sole flying lap of 3m29.178s, with only half-a-dozen cars setting times before the action was suspended.

When proceedings resumed, Conway surged to the top spot in the #6 Toyota with a 3m27.169s, with the #2 Porsche of Romain Dumas coming close to that benchmark with a 3m27.355s.

On his second flying lap after the interruption, Lotterer posted a 3m25.886s to put Audi back on top of the pile, 1.243s up on Conway, and went unchallenged when the second red flags ended the session just under 10 minutes early.

The offending car this time was the #35 Signatech Alpine of David Cheng, who got on the damp kerbs at Indianapolis and spun, hurtling into the barriers at high speed side-on.

In the hands of Nelson Panciatici, the #35 machine had led the way in LMP2 before the first red flag, but in the end it was Rene Rast in the #26 G-Drive Oreca, who topped the times with a 3m40.724s.

Second was the #49 Michael Shank Ligier of Laurens Vanthoor, who posted a 3m41.149s, followed by Andrea Pizzitola in the #25 Algarve Pro Racing Ligier a further two seconds back.

Ford once again topped the times in the GTE Pro class, with category polesitter Dirk Muller posting a 3m57.397s in the #68 car.

Richie Stanaway in the #97 Aston Martin was the German's closest challenger on a 3m58.879s, followed by Richard Lietz's #77 Proton-Dempsey Porsche.

In GTE Am, Patrick Long led the way with a best time of 4m00.162s in the #88 Abu Dhabi-Proton Porsche.

Warm-up results:

Cla	#	Drivers	Car	Class	Time	Gap
1	7	Andre Lotterer   Marcel Fassler   Benoit Tréluyer	Audi R18	LMP1	3'25.886
2	6	Stéphane Sarrazin   Kamui Kobayashi   Mike Conway	Toyota TS050 Hybrid	LMP1	3'27.129	1.243
3	2	Romain Dumas   Neel Jani   Marc Lieb	Porsche 919 Hybrid	LMP1	3'27.355	1.469
4	8	Lucas di Grassi   Loic Duval   Oliver Jarvis	Audi R18	LMP1	3'29.173	3.287
5	5	Anthony Davidson   Kazuki Nakajima   Sébastien Buemi	Toyota TS050 Hybrid	LMP1	3'30.256	4.370
6	13	Alexandre Imperatori   Dominik Kraihamer   Matheo Tuscher	Rebellion R-One	LMP1	3'38.619	12.733
7	26	Will Stevens   Roman Rusinov   René Rast	Oreca 05	LMP2	3'40.724	14.838
8	49	Laurens Vanthoor   John Pew   Oswaldo Negri Jr	Ligier JS P2	LMP2	3'41.149	15.263
9	25	Michael Munemann   Chris Hoy   Andrea Pizzitola	Ligier JS P2	LMP2	3'43.432	17.546
10	36	Nicolas Lapierre   Gustavo Menezes   Stéphane Richelmi	Alpine A460	LMP2	3'44.326	18.440
11	38	Giedo van der Garde   Simon Dolan   Jake Dennis	Gibson 015S	LMP2	3'44.609	18.723
12	43	Bruno Senna   Ricardo Gonzalez   Filipe Albuquerque	Ligier JS P2	LMP2	3'44.702	18.816
13	4	Simon Trummer   Oliver Webb   Pierre Kaffer	CLM P1/01	LMP1	3'45.164	19.278
14	35	Nelson Panciatici   Ho-Pin Tung   David Cheng	Alpine A460	LMP2	3'45.244	19.358
15	41	Julien Canal   Nathanael Berthon   Memo Rojas	Ligier JS P2	LMP2	3'46.595	20.709
16	31	Pipo Derani   Ryan Dalziel   Chris Cumming	Ligier JS P2	LMP2	3'48.161	22.275
17	37	Vitaly Petrov   Viktor Shaytar   Kirill Ladygin	BR01	LMP2	3'49.013	23.127
18	46	Mathias Beche   Pierre Thiriet   Ryo Hirakawa	Oreca 05	LMP2	3'51.525	25.639
19	42	Nick Leventis   Danny Watts   Jonny Kane	Gibson 015S	LMP2	3'52.006	26.120
20	68	Sébastien Bourdais   Joey Hand   Dirk Müller	Ford GT	LMGTE PRO	3'57.397	31.511
21	97	Fernando Rees   Richie Stanaway   Jonathan Adam	Aston Martin Vantage	LMGTE PRO	3'58.879	32.993
22	77	Richard Lietz   Michael Christensen   Philipp Eng	Porsche 911 RSR (2016)	LMGTE PRO	3'59.857	33.971
23	88	David Heinemeier Hansson   Patrick Long   Khaled Al Qubaisi	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	4'00.162	34.276
24	91	Nick Tandy   Patrick Pilet   Kevin Estre	Porsche 911 RSR (2016)	LMGTE PRO	4'00.630	34.744
25	51	Gianmaria Bruni   James Calado   Alessandro Pier Guidi	Ferrari 488 GTE	LMGTE PRO	4'00.986	35.100
26	71	Sam Bird   Davide Rigon   Andrea Bertolini	Ferrari 488 GTE	LMGTE PRO	4'01.426	35.540
27	78	Christian Ried   Wolf Henzler   Joel Camathias	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	4'01.559	35.673
28	98	Pedro Lamy   Paul Dalla Lana   Mathias Lauda	Aston Martin Vantage V8	LMGTE AM	4'01.637	35.751
29	64	Oliver Gavin   Tommy Milner   Jordan Taylor	Chevrolet Corvette C7R	LMGTE PRO	4'03.404	37.518
30	28	Leo Roussel    Inès Taittinger   Remy Striebig	Morgan	LMP2	4'07.549	41.663
31	89	Marc Miller   Cooper MacNeil   Lehman Keen	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	4'07.862	41.976
32	50	Pierre Ragues   Yutaka Yamagishi   Jean-Philippe Belloc	Chevrolet Corvette C7-Z06	LMGTE AM	4'08.237	42.351
33	55	Duncan Cameron   Matt Griffin   Aaron Scott	Ferrari F458 Italia	LMGTE AM	4'08.706	42.820
34	60	Christina Nielsen   Johnny Laursen   Mikkel Mac	Ferrari F458 Italia	LMGTE AM	4'11.627	45.741
35	83	François Perrodo   Emmanuel Collard   Rui Aguas	Ferrari F458 Italia	LMGTE AM	4'14.110	48.224
36	34	Shinji Nakano   Nicolas Leutwiler   James Winslow	Oreca 03R	LMP2	4'19.862	53.976
37	86	Michael Wainwright   Adam Carroll   Ben Barker	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	4'22.171	56.285