Le Mans 24h: #7 Toyota tops qualifying, Hyperpole slots locked in

Kobayashi set the session's benchmark time of 3m26.279s aboard his Toyota GR010 Hybrid in the first half of Wednesday night's one-hour qualifying, going over a second quicker than teammate Brendon Hartley in the sister #8 car that currently leads the FIA World Endurance Championship points standings.

In the second half of the session, Alpine driver Matthieu Vaxiviere split the two Toyotas with the second-fastest time, lapping eight tenths off Kobayashi's best in the #36 Alpine A480-Gibson.

The pair of Glickenhaus Racing 007 LMH cars finished fourth and fifth in the five-car class, with all LMH entrants progressing to Thursday night's Hyperpole shootout comprised of the six fastest entries in each class.

Test day pace-setter Olivier Pla set the fastest time in the #708 Glickenhaus, which beat the fastest of the LMP2 entries into fourth overall.

In LMP2, Antonio Felix da Costa brought his #26 JOTA Oreca 07 to the top of the timesheets with a 3m29.144s effort, 23 minutes before the end of the session.

The outgoing Formula E champion was four tenths quicker than his successor Nyck de Vries, who set the second time aboard the #26 G-Drive Aurus-badged Oreca.

Louis Deletraz ensured that WRT will be present in the Hyperpole shootout on the Belgian squad's first time at Le Mans, the Swiss managing a best effort of 3m29.441s to go third ahead of Will Stevens in the #65 Panis Racing car.

United Autosports managed to get two of its three cars into the Hyperpole session, with its #32 and #23 machines piloted by Nico Jamin and Paul di Resta both progressing at the expense of the WEC points-leading #22 entry of Filipe Albuquerque, Phil Hanson and Fabio Scherer, which only managed the 12th quickest effort.

The Le Mans GT lap record was broken by the top four runners in the GTE Pro class, as Ferrari locked out the top two spots.

Kevin Estre first dipped under the 3m47s barrier with a 3m46.779s lap in the #92 Porsche 911 RSR-19, but that was subsequently beaten by Daniel Serra in the #52 AF Corse Ferrari, whose new benchmark of 3m46.011s remained unbeaten until the end of the session.

The second #51 AF Corse Ferrari in the hands of James Calado launched up to second in the closing stages, with Estre clinging onto third amid a late charge from Nick Tandy's #64 Corvette C8.R.

Tandy's 3m47.074s lap put him into fourth, ahead of the privateer HubAuto Porsche of Dries Vanthoor, with Gianmaria Bruni completing the top six in the #91 works Porsche.

After a closely contested GTE Am qualifying battle, in which the top five runners all lapped faster than the #63 GTE Pro Corvette, the #88 Dempsey Proton Porsche topped the table by virtue of Julian Andlauer's 3m48.620s lap.

The Frenchman beat fellow Porsche runner Ben Barker's early 2m49.100s benchmark in the GR Racing example, while the #47 Cetilar and #71 Inception Racing Ferraris also progressed to Hyperpole courtesy of Le Mans rookies Antonio Fuoco and Ben Barnicoat.

Matteo Cairoli (#56 Team Project 1 Porsche) and Felipe Fraga (#33 TF Sport Aston Martin) completed the top six.

The session was interrupted by an early full-course yellow for an off by IDEC Sport LMP2 driver Paul-Loup Chatin at Tertre Rouge, the Frenchman clattering the barriers in his #48 Oreca and losing his rear wing in the process.

Le Mans 24 Hours - Qualifying results:

Cla	#	Drivers	Car	Class	Avg Time	Gap
1	7	Mike Conway Kamui Kobayashi Jose Maria Lopez	Toyota GR010 - Hybrid	HYPERCAR	3'26.279
2	36	Andre Negrao Nicolas Lapierre Matthieu Vaxiviere	Alpine A480	HYPERCAR	3'27.095	0.816
3	8	Sébastien Buemi Kazuki Nakajima Brendon Hartley	Toyota GR010 - Hybrid	HYPERCAR	3'27.671	1.392
4	708	Pipo Derani Franck Mailleux Olivier Pla	Glickenhaus 007 LMH	HYPERCAR	3'28.256	1.977
5	38	Roberto Gonzalez Antonio Felix da Costa Anthony Davidson	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'28.807	2.528
6	26	Roman Rusinov Franco Colapinto Nyck de Vries	Aurus 01	LMP2	3'29.246	2.967
7	709	Ryan Briscoe Richard Westbrook Romain Dumas	Glickenhaus 007 LMH	HYPERCAR	3'29.381	3.102
8	41	Robert Kubica Louis Deletraz Ye Yifei	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'29.441	3.162
9	65	Julien Canal Will Stevens James Allen	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'29.508	3.229
10	32	Nico Jamin Jonathan Aberdein Manuel Maldonado	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'29.688	3.409
11	23	Paul di Resta Alex Lynn Wayne Boyd	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'29.830	3.551
12	28	Sean Gelael Stoffel Vandoorne Tom Blomqvist	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'29.835	3.556
13	70	Esteban Garcia Loic Duval Norman Nato	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'29.861	3.582
14	24	Patrick Kelly Gabriel Aubry Simon Trummer	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'30.123	3.844
15	48	Paul Lafargue Paul-Loup Chatin Patrick Pilet	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'30.166	3.887
16	31	Robin Frijns Ferdinand Habsburg Charles Milesi	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'30.182	3.903
17	22	Philip Hanson Fabio Scherer Filipe Albuquerque	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'30.234	3.955
18	21	Henrik Hedman Ben Hanley Juan Pablo Montoya	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'30.323	4.044
19	82	Ryan Cullen Oliver Jarvis Felipe Nasr	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'30.418	4.139
20	30	Rene Binder Guillermo Rojas Tristan Gommendy	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'30.691	4.412
21	17	Dwight Merriman Thomas Laurent Ryan Dalziel	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'30.709	4.430
22	29	Frits van Eerd Giedo van der Garde Job Van Uitert	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'30.843	4.564
23	34	Jakub Smiechowski Renger van der Zande Alex Brundle	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'30.908	4.629
24	25	John Falb Roberto Merhi Rui Andrade	Aurus 01	LMP2	3'31.203	4.924
25	49	Anders Fjordbach Jan Magnussen Kevin Magnussen	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'31.830	5.551
26	20	Dennis Andersen Ricky Taylor Marco Sorensen	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'32.252	5.973
27	44	Miro Konopka Oliver Webb Matej Konopka	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'32.446	6.167
28	1	Tatiana Calderon Sophia Flörsch Beitske Visser	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'32.598	6.319
29	84	Takuma Aoki Nigel Bailly Matthieu Lahaye	Oreca 07	INNOVATIVE CAR	3'33.538	7.259
30	39	Vincent Capillaire Arnold Robin Maxime Robin	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'34.005	7.726
31	74	James Winslow John Corbett Tom Cloet	Ligier JSP 217	LMP2	3'36.012	9.733
32	52	Daniel Serra Miguel Molina Sam Bird	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE PRO	3'46.011	19.732
33	51	Alessandro Pier Guidi James Calado Côme Ledogar	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE PRO	3'46.581	20.302
34	92	Kevin Estre Neel Jani Michael Christensen	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE PRO	3'46.779	20.500
35	64	Tommy Milner Nick Tandy Alexander Sims	Chevrolet Corvette C8.R	LMGTE PRO	3'47.074	20.795
36	72	Dries Vanthoor Alvaro Parente Maxime Martin	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE PRO	3'47.599	21.320
37	91	Gianmaria Bruni Richard Lietz Frédéric Makowiecki	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE PRO	3'47.624	21.345
38	79	Cooper MacNeil Earl Bamber Laurens Vanthoor	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE PRO	3'47.682	21.403
39	88	Julien Andlauer Dominique Bastien Lance Arnold	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	3'48.620	22.341
40	86	Michael Wainwright Benjamin Barker Tom Gamble	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	3'49.100	22.821
41	47	Roberto Lacorte Giorgio Sernagiotto Antonio Fuoco	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	3'49.102	22.823
42	71	Brendan Iribe Ollie Millroy Ben Barnicoat	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	3'49.462	23.183
43	56	Egidio Perfetti Matteo Cairoli Riccardo Pera	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	3'49.608	23.329
44	63	Antonio Garcia Jordan Taylor Nick Catsburg	Chevrolet Corvette C8.R	LMGTE PRO	3'49.643	23.364
45	33	Ben Keating Dylan Pereira Felipe Fraga	Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE AM	3'49.663	23.384
46	80	Matteo Cressoni Rino Mastronardi Callum Ilott	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	3'49.693	23.414
47	57	Takeshi Kimura Scott Andrews Mikkel Jensen	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	3'49.715	23.436
48	99	Harry Tincknell Vuttikhorn Inthraphuvasak Florian Latorre	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	3'49.788	23.509
49	54	Thomas Flohr Giancarlo Fisichella Francesco Castellacci	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	3'49.829	23.550
50	83	François Perrodo Nicklas Nielsen Alessio Rovera	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	3'49.881	23.602
51	77	Christian Ried Jaxon Evans Matt Campbell	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	3'49.913	23.634
52	18	Andrew Haryanto Alessio Picariello Marco Seefried	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	3'50.016	23.737
53	388	Pierre Ehret Christian Hook Jeroen Bleekemolen	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	3'50.018	23.739
54	95	John Hartshorne Ollie Hancock Ross Gunn	Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE AM	3'50.059	23.780
55	98	Paul Dalla Lana Nicki Thiim Marcos Gomes	Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE AM	3'50.156	23.877
56	85	Rahel Frey Sarah Bovy Michelle Gatting	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	3'50.314	24.035
57	60	Claudio Schiavoni Paolo Ruberti Raffaele Giammaria	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	3'50.768	24.489
58	777	Satoshi Hoshino Tomonobu Fujii Andrew Watson	Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE AM	3'51.107	24.828
59	46	Dennis Olsen Anders Buchardt Robert Foley	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	3'51.411	25.132
60	55	Duncan Cameron David Perel Matthew Griffin	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	3'52.088	25.809
61	66	Thomas Neubauer Rodrigo Sales Jody Fannin	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	3'52.304	26.025
62	69	Robert Renauer Ralf Bohn Rolf Ineichen	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	3'52.960	26.681
View full results