Le Mans Hyperpole: Porsche take dramatic pole position in red flag-interrupted session

Porsche’s Kevin Estre took pole position for the 24 Hours of Le Mans in dramatic fashion with a last-gasp lap at the Circuit de la Sarthe.

The session had been red-flagged for a crash for BMW’s Dries Vanthoor, with Porsche Penske Motorsport taking top spot in qualifying in a dramatic session at Le Mans.

Top cars at Le Mans set grid in Hyperpole for legendary 24-hour race

After Wednesday’s initial qualifying session, the top eight cars from each class advanced through to Hyperpole on Thursday to set the top section of each part of the grid for the big race this weekend.

The #12 Hertz Team Jota car including former Manor F1 driver Will Stevens had been due to take part, but needed a monocoque replacement after a crash for Callum Ilott in FP2, which team principal Dieter Gass explained left the mechanics with a job that would normally take three weeks to complete in the space of 24 hours, to take part in the event.

And with huge barrier damage to be repaired from a previous session, Hyperpole was delayed by 35 minutes while work took place to get the track in a condition for the drivers to take to the circuit.

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The threat of the weather was present at the Circuit de la Sarthe too, with overcast conditions at Le Mans and spots of rain in the air for the session.

With only 30 minutes to set laps and 13.626km to navigate, only a limited number of runs were possible, and after the first flying laps in Hypercars, Alessandro Pier Guidi and Antonio Fuoco were 1-2 for Ferrari – with F1 team principal Fred Vasseur in the team’s garage at Le Mans this weekend.

A 3:25.294 from former Toro Rosso driver Sébastien Bourdais put him top after his second lap, but without telemetry from the Cadillac pit wall, he was able to improve further to a 3:24.816 to go top by almost eight tenths of a second.

But with the drivers heading out for their second runs with seven minutes left, the BMW of Dries Vanthoor brought out the red flag after crashing into the tyre barrier at Indianapolis, locking up and understeering as he went in.

Bourdais exited his car during the red flag period, with no fuel left in his Cadillac, but the restart of the session saw a scramble to get around to the line for at least one more run.

And despite improvements for the Ferrari pair and Alex Lynn in the sister Cadillac, it was Estre who took pole position at the last with a 3:24.634 – under two tenths separating the top three cars.

Le Mans 2024: Hyperpole classification

Hypercars

1 #6 PORSCHE PENSKE MOTORSPORT (K. Estre, A. Lotterer, L. Vanthoor) 3:24.634

2 #2 CADILLAC RACING (E. Bamber, A. Lynn, A. Palou) 3:24.782*

3 #3 CADILLAC RACING (S. Bourdais, R. van der Zande, S. Dixon) 3:24.816

4 #51 FERRARI AF CORSE (A. Pier Guidi, J. Calado, A. Giovinazzi) 3:25.156

5 #50 FERRARI AF CORSE (A. Fuoco, M. Molina, N. Nielsen) 3:25.598

6 #35 ALPINE ENDURANCE TEAM (P. Chatin, F. Habsburg, C. Milesi) 3:25.713

7 #15 BMW M TEAM WRT (D. Vanthoor, R. Marciello, M. Wittmann) NO TIME

*Five-place grid penalty will be applied, due to previous punishment from last World Endurance Championship round at Spa.

LMP2

1 #14 AO BY TF (P. Hyett, L. Deletraz, A. Quinn) 3:33.217

2 #28 IDEC SPORT (P. Lafargue, J. Van Uitert, R. de Gerus) 3:33.827

3 #65 PANIS RACING (R. Sales, M. Beche, S. Huffaker) 3:34.053

4 #23 UNITED AUTOSPORTS USA (B. Keating, F. Albuquerque, B. Hanley) 3:34.221

5 #22 UNITED AUTOSPORTS (O. Jarvis, B. Garg, N. Siegel) 3:34.270

6 #37 COOL RACING (L. Fluxá, M. Jakobsen, R. Miyata) 3:34.773

7 #33 DKR ENGINEERING (A. Mattschull, R. Binder, L. Hörr) 3:34.330

8 #10 VECTOR SPORT (R. Cullen, P. Pilet, S. Richelmi) 3:34.262

LMGT3

1 #70 INCEPTION RACING (B. Iribe, O. Millroy, F. Schandorff) 3:58.120

2 #92 MANTHEY PURERXCING (A. Malykhin, J. Sturm, K. Bachler) 3:58.928

3 #66 JMW MOTORSPORT (G. Petrobelli, L. ten Voorde, S. Yoluc) 3:58.938

4 #77 PROTON COMPETITION (R. Hardwick, Z. Robichon, B. Barker) 3:59.443

5 #27 HEART OF RACING TEAM (I. James, D. Mancinelli, A. Riberas 3:59.655

6 #777 D’STATION RACING (S. Hoshino, E. Bastard, M. Sorensen) 4:02.787

7 #82 TF SPORT (H. Koizumi, S. Baud, D. Juncadella) 4:03.681

8 #60 IRON LYNX (C. Schiavoni, M. Cressoni, F. Perera) 4:06.495

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