Tandy tops shortened Q2 at Le Mans

Nick Tandy set the fastest time in a shortened second qualifying session at Le Mans this evening. The two hour session was stopped after 1hr 14mins when Jan Magnussen suffered an accident in the Porsche Curves.

Tandy, driving the No.19 Porsche 919 Hybrid set a best of 3m18.862 as Porsche concentrated on evaluating race rubber on long stints. The vast majority of times this evening were slower than yesterday’s best but Tandy improved on the No.19's time by just over 0.5s.

Andre Lotterer registered the second fastest lap of the session by setting a 3m20.561 in the No.7 Audi R18 e-tron quattro. Along with the No.19 Porsche improvement, this was one of the few times which bettered last night’s best effort.

Tristan Gommendy was quickest in LMP2 in the Thiriet by TDS ORECA 05 but was once again reported to the stewards for track limit violations at Tertre Rouge.

The N0.21 Nissan GT-R LM NISMO driven by Tsugio Matsuda went quicker than its best time from yesterday and jumped to 18th position overall.

Aston, Ferrari lead GTE classes

Aston Martin again headed the LMGTE Pro class but this time it was the No.97 Aston Martin driven by Darren Turner that led the pack on a 3m57.447s.

Andrea Bertolini broke the Aston Martin stranglehold in LMGTE Am with a 3m58.837s lap in the SMP Racing Ferrari 458 Italia. The time though was still 2.6s off Pedro Lamy’s best from yesterday evening and 1.6 away from his ultimate best.

The session was shortened because of Magnussen’s accident and organisers decided to end it there and then, preferring to opt for an earlier start and a thirty minute extension to the final qualifying which will now take place at 21.30 local time.

Other incidents

Other incidents in the session saw the No.13 Rebellion R-One-AER driven by Dominik Kraihamer hit the wall at the first Mulsanne Chicane. This brought out the first red flag of the session as workers had to rebuild the tyre-barrier.

The provisional pole sitting KCMG ORECA 05-Nissan also suffered an accident just after Mulsanne Corner. Matt Howson was at the wheel when the LMP2 Coupe suffered a suspected mechanical breakage pitching the British racer in to a lurid spin.

Many drivers were warned about track limit violations, particularly at Tertre Rouge, during the session with the most noteworthy penalty coming the way of the No.1 Toyota Gazoo Racing entry.

The final qualifying session begins at 21.30 local time.

Complete session results