Although Andre Lotterer set the fastest overall lap in the #7 Audi, it was the #8 Audi of Lucas di Grassi and Loic Duval who combined to set the best average time.

That was enough to beat the #2 Porsche of Neel Jani and Marc Lieb into second place by just 0.042s, while Marcel Fassler was unable to get near teammate Lotterer’s pace and was forced to settle for third in Audi #7 – 0.281s off their sister car.

“The track is so tricky to drive, with so little downforce, so it’s difficult to nail a pole lap,” said di Grassi. “The combined efforts with Loic gave us this pole. Amazing.”

Duval added: “I did a mistake on my first lap, and my second was a decent lap but I was careful in the stadium, so it wasn’t the maximum.”

The Porsche #1 of Brendon Hartley and Mark Webber will start fourth, after its combined time was a third of a second off the #8 Audi.

Toyota will start fifth and sixth, with the #5 car getting to within 0.891s of the leading pace. The rebuilt #6 car was 2.2s off, however.

Fairytale story in LMP2

The local RGR Sport by Morand squad scored a sensational class pole in LMP2, as Ricardo Gonzalez and Bruno Senna put the #43 Ligier a quarter of a second clear of the #36 Signatech Alpine, which was crashed by Nicolas Lapierre and caused a brief red flag.

“The result is amazing,” said Gonzalez. “After three months of nerve wracking, I’m enjoying this.

Senna added: “This is the kind of qualifying I love, I pushed hard.”

Strakka’s #42 Gibson will start third in class, ahead of the usual pacesetting G-Drive Oreca of Romain Rusinov and Rene Rast.

Aston on top in GT classes

Aston Martin ruled the roost in GTE Pro, with the #95 car of Marco Sorenson and Nicki Thiim just overcoming the #97 of Richie Stanaway and Darren Turner by 0.142s.

“We have maybe an advantage here, but the others had a massive advantage at Le Mans,” said Sorenson.

The #51 Ferrari of Gianmaria Bruni and James Calado was best of the rest, with the #77 Dempsey Porsche just pipping the second Ferrari for fourth.

It was a bad session for Ford, with Andy Priaulx going off at Turn 12 in #67 but salvaging seventh behind the #66 sister car.

Pedro Lamy and Paul Dalla Lana will start from pole position in GTE Am, ahead of the Proton and Gulf Porsches.

“Paul made the biggest difference today, but I’m quite happy too,” said Lamy.

LMP qualifying results:

Cla	#	Drivers	Car	Class	Time	Gap
1	8	Lucas di Grassi Loic Duval Oliver Jarvis	Audi R18	LMP1	1'25.069
2	2	Romain Dumas Neel Jani Marc Lieb	Porsche 919 Hybrid	LMP1	1'25.111	0.042
3	7	Andre Lotterer Marcel Fassler	Audi R18	LMP1	1'25.350	0.281
4	1	Mark Webber Timo Bernhard Brendon Hartley	Porsche 919 Hybrid	LMP1	1'25.400	0.331
5	5	Kazuki Nakajima Sébastien Buemi	Toyota TS050 Hybrid	LMP1	1'25.960	0.891
6	6	Stéphane Sarrazin Kamui Kobayashi Mike Conway	Toyota TS050 Hybrid	LMP1	1'27.334	2.265
7	13	Alexandre Imperatori Dominik Kraihamer Matheo Tuscher	Rebellion R-One	LMP1	1'29.909	4.840
8	4	Simon Trummer Oliver Webb Pierre Kaffer	CLM P1/01	LMP1	1'31.674	6.605
9	43	Bruno Senna Ricardo Gonzalez Filipe Albuquerque	Ligier JS P2	LMP2	1'35.485	10.416
10	36	Nicolas Lapierre Gustavo Menezes Stéphane Richelmi	Alpine A460	LMP2	1'35.819	10.750
11	42	Nick Leventis Jonny Kane Lewis Williamson	Gibson 015S	LMP2	1'36.037	10.968
12	26	Roman Rusinov René Rast Alex Brundle	Oreca 05	LMP2	1'36.063	10.994
13	44	Richard Bradley Matthew Rao Alfonso Diaz Guerra	Oreca 05	LMP2	1'36.594	11.525
14	41	Bruno Junqueira Roberto Gonzalez Luis Diaz	Gibson 015S	LMP2	1'36.914	11.845
15	27	Maurizio Mediani Nicolas Minassian	BR01	LMP2	1'37.102	12.033
16	37	Vitaly Petrov Viktor Shaytar Kirill Ladygin	BR01	LMP2	1'37.112	12.043
17	35	Nelson Panciatici Ho-Pin Tung David Cheng	Alpine A460	LMP2	1'37.482	12.413
18	31	Pipo Derani Ryan Dalziel Chris Cumming	Ligier JS P2	LMP2	1'37.752	12.683
19	30	Scott Sharp Ed Brown Johannes van Overbeek	Ligier JS P2	LMP2	1'39.514	14.445

GTE qualifying results:

Cla	#	Drivers	Car	Class	Avg Time	Gap
1	95	Marco Sorensen Nicki Thiim	Aston Martin Vantage V8	LMGTE PRO	1'40.458
2	97	Darren Turner Richie Stanaway	Aston Martin Vantage V8	LMGTE PRO	1'40.600	0.142
3	51	Gianmaria Bruni James Calado	Ferrari 488 GTE	LMGTE PRO	1'41.034	0.576
4	77	Richard Lietz Michael Christensen	Porsche 911 RSR (2016)	LMGTE PRO	1'41.383	0.925
5	71	Sam Bird Davide Rigon	Ferrari 488 GTE	LMGTE PRO	1'41.426	0.968
6	66	Stefan Mücke Olivier Pla	Ford GT	LMGTE PRO	1'41.523	1.065
7	67	Harry Tincknell Andy Priaulx Marino Franchitti	Ford GT	LMGTE PRO	1'41.836	1.378
8	98	Pedro Lamy Paul Dalla Lana Mathias Lauda	Aston Martin Vantage V8	LMGTE AM	1'42.437	1.979
9	88	David Heinemeier Hansson Patrick Long Khaled Al Qubaisi	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	1'42.839	2.381
10	86	Michael Wainwright Adam Carroll Ben Barker	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	1'43.546	3.088
11	78	Christian Ried Wolf Henzler Joel Camathias	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	1'43.722	3.264
12	50	Pierre Ragues Ricky Taylor Yutaka Yamagishi	Chevrolet Corvette C7-Z06	LMGTE AM	1'43.738	3.280
13	83	François Perrodo Emmanuel Collard Rui Aguas	Ferrari F458 Italia	LMGTE AM	1'43.880	3.422