Le Mans 24h: Kobayashi grabs pole again for #7 Toyota
Kamui Kobayashi has delivered Toyota pole position for the 89th running of the Le Mans 24 Hours, holding off teammate Brendon Hartley in Thursday night's Hyperpole shootout.
In the 30-minute session featuring the fastest six cars in each class, Kobayashi drew first blood by setting a lap of 3m23.900s on his first attempt, over a second quicker than stablemate Hartley in the #8 Toyota.
Olivier Pla was third fastest in the #708 Glickenhaus, a full 2.5 seconds in arrears but two seconds ahead of Nicolas Lapierre, who struggled on his first lap in the #36 Alpine A480.
However, the red flag soon came out when Kevin Estre, the fastest man in GTE all week, spun off and went into the wall at Indianapolis in his #92 Porsche 911 RSR-19.
After a brief interruption Kobayashi stayed just marginally above his benchmark, while Hartley moved within three tenths with laps of 3m24.230s and then 3m24.195s. Lapierre improved to move third with a 3m26.015s, which he followed up with a 3m25.574s.
Lapierre's lap was nearly four tenths faster than Pla's 3m25.996s, while Dumas was a distant fifth in the second #709 Glickenhaus entry.
In LMP2 Antonio Felix da Costa and Louis Deletraz initially traded the top spot, with Da Costa securing pole with a 3m27.950s lap in the #38 JOTA Oreca-Gibson, half a second up on Deletraz in the #41 WRT Oreca.
Will Stevens was third in the #65 Panis Racing Oreca, just one tenth behind Deletraz, followed by G-Drive's Nyck de Vries and United Autosports pair Nico Jamin and Paul Di Resta.
#72 Hub Auto Racing Porsche 911 RSR - 19 LMGTE Pro, Dries Vanthoor, Alvaro Parente, Maxime Martin
Photo by: Paul Foster
HubAuto takes shock GTE Pro pole
In GTE Pro the timing of Estre's off meant the remaining five cars had to wait until after the restart for their first flying laps, but it also meant the clear favourite for pole was out of contention.
Dries Vanthoor went fastest on the first run in the #72 HubAuto Porsche 911 RSR-19, his 3m46.882s two tenths quicker than Daniel Serra in the #52 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE Evo and Nick Tandy in the #64 Corvette C8.R.
The Belgian's lap held up until the end, taking pole for the Asian team's privately-entered car.
James Calado was fourth in the second #51 AF Corse Ferrari, four tenths removed from pole, with Gianmaria Bruni settling for fifth in the sole remaining factory Porsche.
Porsche secured a clean sweep of the top three in GTE Am, with Julien Andlauer taking pole in the #88 Dempsey Proton car with a 3.47.987s effort.
Andlauer stayed over five tenths clear of the #86 GR Racing Porsche of Ben Barker and put nine tenths on the third-placed #56 Team Project 1 machine of Matteo Cairoli.
Hyperpole results:
Cla | # | Drivers | Car | Class | Avg Time | Gap |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 7 |
Mike Conway
Kamui Kobayashi Jose Maria Lopez |
Toyota GR010 - Hybrid | HYPERCAR | 3'23.900 | |
2 | 8 |
Sébastien Buemi
Kazuki Nakajima Brendon Hartley |
Toyota GR010 - Hybrid | HYPERCAR | 3'24.195 | 0.295 |
3 | 36 |
Andre Negrao
Nicolas Lapierre Matthieu Vaxiviere |
Alpine A480 | HYPERCAR | 3'25.574 | 1.674 |
4 | 708 |
Pipo Derani
Franck Mailleux Olivier Pla |
Glickenhaus 007 LMH | HYPERCAR | 3'25.639 | 1.739 |
5 | 709 |
Ryan Briscoe
Richard Westbrook Romain Dumas |
Glickenhaus 007 LMH | HYPERCAR | 3'26.931 | 3.031 |
6 | 38 |
Roberto Gonzalez
Antonio Felix da Costa Anthony Davidson |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 3'27.950 | 4.050 |
7 | 41 |
Robert Kubica
Louis Deletraz Ye Yifei |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 3'28.470 | 4.570 |
8 | 65 |
Julien Canal
Will Stevens James Allen |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 3'28.586 | 4.686 |
9 | 26 |
Roman Rusinov
Franco Colapinto Nyck de Vries |
Aurus 01 | LMP2 | 3'28.943 | 5.043 |
10 | 32 |
Nico Jamin
Jonathan Aberdein Manuel Maldonado |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 3'29.078 | 5.178 |
11 | 23 |
Paul di Resta
Alex Lynn Wayne Boyd |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 3'30.027 | 6.127 |
12 | 72 |
Dries Vanthoor
Alvaro Parente Maxime Martin |
Porsche 911 RSR | LMGTE PRO | 3'46.882 | 22.982 |
13 | 52 |
Daniel Serra
Miguel Molina Sam Bird |
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO | LMGTE PRO | 3'47.063 | 23.163 |
14 | 64 |
Tommy Milner
Nick Tandy Alexander Sims |
Chevrolet Corvette C8.R | LMGTE PRO | 3'47.093 | 23.193 |
15 | 51 |
Alessandro Pier Guidi
James Calado Côme Ledogar |
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO | LMGTE PRO | 3'47.247 | 23.347 |
16 | 91 |
Gianmaria Bruni
Richard Lietz Frédéric Makowiecki |
Porsche 911 RSR | LMGTE PRO | 3'47.696 | 23.796 |
17 | 88 |
Julien Andlauer
Dominique Bastien Lance David Arnold |
Porsche 911 RSR | LMGTE AM | 3'47.987 | 24.087 |
18 | 86 |
Michael Wainwright
Benjamin Barker Tom Gamble |
Porsche 911 RSR | LMGTE AM | 3'48.560 | 24.660 |
19 | 56 |
Egidio Perfetti
Matteo Cairoli Riccardo Pera |
Porsche 911 RSR | LMGTE AM | 3'48.876 | 24.976 |
20 | 47 |
Roberto Lacorte
Giorgio Sernagiotto Antonio Fuoco |
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO | LMGTE AM | 3'49.387 | 25.487 |
21 | 71 |
Brendan Iribe
Ollie Millroy Ben Barnicoat |
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO | LMGTE AM | 3'49.477 | 25.577 |
22 | 33 |
Ben Keating
Dylan Pereira Felipe Fraga |
Aston Martin Vantage AMR | LMGTE AM | 3'49.676 | 25.776 |
23 | 92 |
Kevin Estre
Neel Jani Michael Christensen |
Porsche 911 RSR | LMGTE PRO | ||
View full results |
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