Qualifying report
WEC
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.
Filip Cleeren
Edited: Feb 11, 2022, 5:59 PM
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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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