In a nailbiting last lap, Kevin Estre in the #6 Penske Porsche took a surprise pole position for the 92nd 24 hours of Le Mans having not been in the reckoning for the entire session. With the Cadillac team looking strong, following multiple fastest laps from Sebastian Bourdais in the #3 car, It was Estre who came from nowhere to take pole position.
Louis Deletraz took the LMP2 pole having taken the position early on and held on despite a late challenge from the #28 IDEC Racing car of Jan van Uitert.
Brendan Iribe took the LMGT3 pole taking the place early on and defending it from Alex Malykhin in the #92 Manthey PureRxcing Porsche despite a spin at the last chicane as he pushed hard to improve his time.
The highly anticipated Hyper pole session at the Le Mans 24 Hours race got off to a delayed start, but it didn’t disappoint. Despite a delay of 34 minutes due to extensive repairs to sections of the trackside barrier after a heavy impact in the previous race.
Once the session was underway it was Dries Vanthoor, driving the #15 BMW M Team WRT, who led the way into the 30-minute session. Despite dropping track temperatures and the looming threat of rain, Vanthoor immediately showed his speed. However, the Ferraris were hot on his heels. Alessandro Pier Guidi in the #51 Ferrari setting purple sectors, closely followed by teammate Antonio Fuoco in the #50 Ferrari, just 0.356 seconds behind.
Unfortunately for Vanthoor, his subsequent laps were invalidated due to multiple track limit infringements, pushing him down to sixth place. His woes continued when he left the track at Indianapolis, resulting in a red flag and the deletion of all his times.
Meanwhile, in the LMP2 class, Louis Deletraz in the #14 AO by TF on lap 3 put in a strong performance to grab the early class pole, with a time of 3:33.994 set on his third lap with the #37 COOL Racing car of Jakob Jacobsen trailing by a mere 0.09 seconds.
In the LMGT3 class, Alex Malykhin piloted the #92 Porsche to the top spot, closely pursued by Giacomo Petrobelli. But the real surprise came from Brendan Iribe in the #70 Inception Racing McLaren. Despite a spin at the final chicane, Iribe secured the class pole for McLaren.
As the green flag waved to resume the session following Vanthoors off, and with 7 minutes remaining, the Ferraris pushed hard. However, the #3 Cadillac remained stationary in the pits, lacking sufficient fuel to continue but seemingly confident that they’d done enough to secure first spot for Le Mans born Sebastian Bourdais.
Antonio Fuoco was taking an aggressive approach to the final stint, looking to stay ahead of team mate Pier Guidi he found himself cutting the corner at turn 3 forcing him to back off and give the place to Pier Guidi for a clear shot at pole position. With 2 laps to make an impression, Pier Guidi in the #50 Ferrari improved his time and was looking strong on his final lap.
But Alex Lynn in the #2 Cadillac had other plans, delivering a flying final sector to snatch pole from teammate Sebastian Bourdais. With all eyes on the Cadillac team, Kevin Estre in the #6 Penske Porsche burst across the line in the final moments to leap from P6 to P1. Picking up a tow from an LMP2 along the back straight helped to boost the car up the field, despite the same LMP2 slightly compromising Estre into Indianapolis.
But with a near-perfect lap from the Frenchman it was sufficient to take pole with a time of 3:24.634, 0.148 seconds quicker than Lynn and bumping Bourdais down to P3. Due to the 5-place grid penalty imposed on the #2 Cadillac following the red flag at Spa Francorchamps, the #3 Cadillac of Bourdais, Renger van der Zande and Scott Dixon will start from P2 and the #51 AF Corse Ferrari of Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado and Antonio Giovinazzi will start in third place.
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