Le Mans 24 Hours final qualifying day
Live Text
Sort by
Oldest first
Good evening, and welcome to live coverage of Thursday's final two qualifying sessions for the 2018 Le Mans 24 Hours.
Information
The first of this evening's two-hour qualifying sessions - which starts in around 10 minutes - will take place in daylight hours, but it's significantly greyer overhead at Le Mans today than it was on Wednesday. It doesn't look like there's any real threat of rain, though.
LMP1
Looks like Fernando Alonso will be first out in the #8 Toyota, which currently sits on provisional pole.
Twitter
Twitter
Twitter
LMP1
A few minutes to go before the start of the session, but there's already a smattering of cars heading down the pitlane - including Alonso and Mike Conway in the #8 and #7 Toyotas respectively.
Autosport
If you're in need of a quick recap of the current order, here's our race report from yesterday evening's session - in which the two Toyotas locked out a provisional 1-2 on the grid. 
Lights green
The green light is on at the end of the pitlane. Second qualifying is underway.
LMP1
The ByKolles - with Dillmann at the wheel - is the first car out of the pits, while both Ginettas have also headed out.
LMP1
Renger van der Zande is currently sitting behind the wheel of the #10 Dragonspeed. He confirmed to Autosport earlier on that it's problems in last night's qualifying session resulted from a loose wheel, rather than anything mechanical.
Radio Comms
Lotterer has headed out in the #1 Rebellion, which is currently fourth in the order. He said earlier the car would "have a shot" at beating the #17 SMP car to best of the rest spot, but suggested team-mate Jani might be the man to get a shot at that.
"We can only compare ourselves to SMP, so [the time was] not too bad," Lotterer said of the car's Wednesday evening lap. "We’re on a similar level if not better. Yesterday it was just difficult to put it all together with all the slow zones and everything.
"Tonight we scheduled in the run plan to have a shot. Let’s see who will be in the car at that time. I’ll start the race and yesterday it was Bruno [Senna], so maybe Neel [Jani] has a go."
"We can only compare ourselves to SMP, so [the time was] not too bad," Lotterer said of the car's Wednesday evening lap. "We’re on a similar level if not better. Yesterday it was just difficult to put it all together with all the slow zones and everything.
"Tonight we scheduled in the run plan to have a shot. Let’s see who will be in the car at that time. I’ll start the race and yesterday it was Bruno [Senna], so maybe Neel [Jani] has a go."
LMP2
Major heart-in-mouth moment for Norman Nato at the Porsche Curves. The #35 SMP Racing Dallara gets all crossed up and skitters across the grass on the apex to the right-hander, but gathers it up without hitting anything. Definitely wouldn't have gotten away with that last year...
Slow Zone
Sven Muller's #94 Porsche is in the barriers at Indianapolis. Slow Zone deployed.
LMP1
The #6 Ginetta has already improved its time - Brundle has recorded a 3m27.613s to move up to 18th. The #5 car is down in 25th after all of its times set by Leo Roussel yesterday were deleted for a pitlane speeding violation.
LMP2
We've got another LMP2 car touring slowly back to the pits, Tracy Krohn in the Eurasia Motorsport #44 Ligier has lost his right-front wheel.
LMP1
Conway skips across the gravel at the Dunlop chicane but keeps it going. It looks like he locked up and didn't attempt to turn in after that.
GTE PRO
Patrick Pilet gives us our first GTE Pro class improvement, a 3m49.621s. That puts the #93 Porsche up to fifth in class, but still two seconds behind Gianmaria Bruni's mega 3m47s effort from last night.
LMP1
The last laps were considerably slower due to the slow zone, but Alonso set a 3m20.521s on his first flying lap. That was around a second slower than Conway managed.
Crash
More drama in the GTE Pro ranks as Andy Priaulx dips a wheel on the grass at Tertre Rouge and spins, hitting the barriers backwards in the #67 Ford GT. He's trundling back to the pits as we speak.
LMP2
Nobody making any big efforts early on in LMP2, but that's hardly a surprise with the multiple incidents on track.
Red flag
Red flag.
Information
Race control is reporting "only few drops" of rain.
Twitter
The red flag being shown for the Ford GT's crash, as its bodywork is collected (Photo: LAT)
Marshals were quick to the scene to recover bits that had flown off the #67 Ford, so hopefully we shouldn't be waiting too long for a restart.
Replays show the Muller crash was a pretty hefty one. He loses the back end on entry, clouts the barrier before sliding into the runoff with a side-on impact with the tyres. Barrier repairs are going on at Indianapolis, so that's the more likely cause of the delay.
Twitter
GTE PRO
The damaged Ford is crawling back to the pits with significant damage to the rear left of the car.
There's also a deflated tyre on the front left-hand side hindering its return to the pits.
There's also a deflated tyre on the front left-hand side hindering its return to the pits.
Information
Race control says the session will resume at 19:30, so in about three minutes' time.
GTE PRO
The Ford has now made it back to the pits, but a quick return to the track is certainly not going to happen.
Rain
Our photographers are reporting spots of rain on track...
Quote
Priaulx's team-mate Tony Kanaan reckons Ford will be able to repair the car in time for the next session.
“That’s not like Andy’s style," he says. "For sure, we’ll find something’s wrong. We’ll bounce back.
"We’ll fix it and go racing, that’s what we do. We’ll probably be able to fix it for the next session.”
“That’s not like Andy’s style," he says. "For sure, we’ll find something’s wrong. We’ll bounce back.
"We’ll fix it and go racing, that’s what we do. We’ll probably be able to fix it for the next session.”
Information
It's 19:31 local time now and the session still hasn't restarted.
Twitter
Information
We've now got a slow zone notification on the timing screens, but no sign of the red flag being lifted.
Green flag
There we are. Without warning, the session is back underway again. the #1 Rebellion is the first car out of the pits.
Radio Comms
Conway’s engineer talks him through his Dunlop Chicane off: “From the data we see you braked in the same place, with the same amount [force]. The only difference we see is the brake temperature, so the bite was a bit different. Maybe some [rain] drops.”
Conway replies: “It was quite high bite from the start of the session with these brakes, just because I thought they were cold.”
Conway replies: “It was quite high bite from the start of the session with these brakes, just because I thought they were cold.”
LMP1
Alonso is also back out there in the #8 Toyota.
By: Matt Beer
Published:
Page:
