Le Mans 24 Hours: Audi leads red-flagged warm-up
Andre Lotterer put Audi on top of the timesheets in a morning warm-up session brought to a premature halt by red flags, the German beating the Toyota of Mike Conway by 1.2 seconds.
Photo by: Alexander Trienitz
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 |
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