Le Mans 24 Hours: Kobayashi seals pole in all Toyota front row
Toyota locked out its expected one-two on the 2019 Le Mans 24 Hours grid after a disrupted final qualifying that prevented an early rush for fastest laps
The relatively light conditions at the start of the session meant the majority of the LMP1 field headed out instantly in search of fast times in the cooler temperatures.
But a heavy crash for the #81 MTEK BMW M8 GTE of Nicky Catsburg at the Ford chicane caused a slow zone after just 11 minutes of the two-hour session.
Neither of the two Toyota TS050 HYBRIDs had improved their best times before the GTE Pro car's crash.
It meant Kamui Kobayashi's best time of 3m15.497s from the earlier qualifying session was enough to seal pole position for the #7 entry he shares with Mike Conway and Jose Maria Lopez, ahead of the best lap set by Kazuki Nakajima in the sister Toyota during the same period.
World Endurance Championship leaders Nakajima, Fernando Alonso and Sebastien Buemi therefore start second.
Both SMP Racing entries managed to squeeze in a flying lap before Catsburg's crash.
Egor Orudzhev won the intra-team battle by placing the #17 BR Engineering BR1 third on the grid courtesy of his 3m16.159s tour, trailing the pole time by 0.662s.
Ex-McLaren Formula 1 driver Stoffel Vandoorne came close to putting the #11 SMP-run car ahead but could only produce a 3m16.665s effort.
That had initially proven good enough for fourth on the grid before Gustavo Menezes lifted the #3 Rebellion-Gibson R-13 into that position inside the final hour.
Menezes's 3m16.665s tour nudged the car Vandoorne shares with Mikhail Aleshin and Vitaly Petrov down into fifth.
The #3 Rebellion had lost a significant amount of running in the earlier qualifying session after Thomas Laurent stopped on track with smoke coming from the rear of the car.
A similar incident occurred for the sister #1 Rebellion in the final qualifying period when Bruno Senna stopped on track with over an hour remaining.
The Rebellion did not return to the track, meaning it remained in sixth.
The #10 DragonSpeed BR Engineering BR1 did not improve its time in the earlier qualifying and was late to take to the track in the final session.
It means the DragonSpeed entry will start the race in seventh ahead of the solo ByKolles car.
Tom Dillmann gave the ENSO CLM P1/01 its best lap time, producing a 3m23.109s lap.
LMP2 - Graff leads ORECA sweep
Graff took a surprise pole in LMP2 courtesy of an early flier from Tristan Gommendy, as ORECA locked out the top six places on the grid.
UPDATE: Graff loses pole to TDS
Pascal Rauturier's Graff squad finished second in LMP2 last year and set the fourth quickest time in the hotter conditions of the test day, but had not looked like troubling the pacesetters throughout the previous three sessions of race week until Gommendy pumped in a 3m25.073s to go 0.272 seconds clear of Loic Duval - who had set the early pace in the #28 TDS Racing ORECA.
This was 1.4s quicker than the benchmark time set in the first session by Pastor Maldonado in the #31 DragonSpeed ORECA, although still two tenths slower than last year's record pole lap claimed by Paul-Loup Chatin.
Gommendy's lap came amid a flurry of early improvements prior to the slow zone resulting from Catsburg's off, with Maldonado and Chatin's IDEC Sport ORECA also ducking under the previous pole time.
Three-time class winner Nicolas Lapierre displaced Chatin to take fourth for Signatech-Alpine in the closing stages, but despite setting purple sectors on his final effort could not remove Gommendy from the top spot, which he had previously won in 2014 when driving a TDS Racing ORECA 03.
There was much talk about the one-lap pace of the Michelin tyres relative to the Dunlops pre-event and although Gommendy's pole underlined its potential, Duval's Dunlop-shod ORECA went some way to allaying fears that the Michelins would have a huge advantage.
Behind Michelin runners Maldonado, Lapierre and Chatin, Jean-Eric Vergne was sixth in the TDS-run #26 G-Drive Racing ORECA, while Filipe Albuquerque celebrated his 34th birthday by taking seventh as the best non-ORECA in the #22 United Autosport Ligier.
GTE - Aston grabs pole
Aston Martin secured pole in the GTE Pro class ahead of Ford, Corvette and Porsche.
Marco Sorensen was at the wheel of the #95 Vantage GTE for a lap of 3m48.000s, which was enough to beat Harry Tincknell in the #67 Ford GT by just 0.112s and Antonio Garcia in the #63 Corvette C7.R by 0.830s.
The best of the Porsche 911 RSRs was one of the CORE autosport-run IMSA cars, the #93 machine of Nick Tandy in fourth, which had been third until Garcia's last-gasp improvement.
BMW made it five different manufacturers in the top five thanks to Augusto Farfus's best lap in the #82 M8 GTE.
Ferrari's top representative was the #71 488 GTE of Sam Bird in eighth, behind the #66 Ford GT of late improver Dirk Muller and the WEC points-leading #92 Porsche driven by Michael Christensen.
Porsche locked out the top three places in GTE Am, with Matteo Cairoli clinching pole for the #88 Dempsey-Proton car with a best time of 3m51.439s.
Matt Campbell was around two tenths slower in the sister #77 car, while Thomas Preining made a late move up to third in the #86 Gulf Racing Porsche, demoting the best of the Ferraris - the #84 JMW Motorsport car.
Starting grid
Pos | Class | Driver | Team | Car | Time | Gap |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | LMP1 | M.Conway, K.Kobayashi, J.M.Lopez | Toyota Gazoo Racing | Toyota | 3m15.497s | - |
2 | LMP1 | S.Buemi, K.Nakajima, F.Alonso | Toyota Gazoo Racing | Toyota | 3m15.908s | 0.411s |
3 | LMP1 | S.Sarrazin, E.Orudzhev, S.Sirotkin | SMP Racing | BR Engineering/AER | 3m16.159s | 0.662s |
4 | LMP1 | T.Laurent, N.Berthon, G.Menezes | Rebellion Racing | Rebellion/Gibson | 3m16.404s | 0.907s |
5 | LMP1 | V.Petrov, M.Aleshin, S.Vandoorne | SMP Racing | BR Engineering/AER | 3m16.665s | 1.168s |
6 | LMP1 | N.Jani, A.Lotterer, B.Senna | Rebellion Racing | Rebellion/Gibson | 3m16.810s | 1.313s |
7 | LMP1 | H.Hedman, B.Hanley, R.van der Zande | DragonSpeed | BR Engineering/Gibson | 3m20.200s | 4.703s |
8 | LMP1 | T.Dillmann, O.Webb, P.Ruberti | ByKOLLES Racing Team | ENSO CLM/Nissan | 3m23.109s | 7.612s |
9 | LMP2 | F.Perrodo, M.Vaxiviere, L.Duval | TDS Racing | ORECA/Gibson | 3m25.345s | 9.848s |
10 | LMP2 | R.Gonzalez, P.Maldonado, A.Davidson | DragonSpeed | ORECA/Gibson | 3m25.667s | 10.170s |
11 | LMP2 | N.Lapierre, A.Negrao, P.Thiriet | Signatech Alpine Matmut | Alpine/Gibson | 3m25.874s | 10.377s |
12 | LMP2 | P.Lafargue, P-L.Chatin, M.Rojas | Idec Sport Racing | ORECA/Gibson | 3m26.011s | 10.514s |
13 | LMP2 | R.Rusinov, J.van Uitert, J-E.Vergne | G-Drive Racing | ORECA/Gibson | 3m26.257s | 10.760s |
14 | LMP2 | P.Hanson, F.Albuquerque, P.Di Resta | United Autosports | Ligier/Gibson | 3m26.543s | 11.046s |
15 | LMP2 | H-Pin Tung, S.Richelmi, G.Aubry | Jackie Chan DC Racing | ORECA/Gibson | 3m26.821s | 11.324s |
16 | LMP2 | F.van Eerd, G.van der Garde, N.de Vries | Racing Team Nederland | Dallara/Gibson | 3m27.107s | 11.610s |
17 | LMP2 | R.Cullen, A.Brundle, W.Owen | United Autosports | Ligier/Gibson | 3m27.509s | 12.012s |
18 | LMP2 | A.Fjordbach, D.Andersen, M.Beche | High Class Racing | Ligier/Gibson | 3m27.610s | 12.113s |
19 | LMP2 | R.Binder, J.Canal, W.Stevens | Panis Barthez Competition | Ligier/Gibson | 3m27.790s | 12.293s |
20 | LMP2 | D.H.Hansson, J.King, R.Taylor | Jackie Chan DC Racing | ORECA/Gibson | 3m28.049s | 12.552s |
21 | LMP2 | N.Jamin, P.Ragues, R.Dumas | Duqueine Engineering | ORECA/Gibson | 3m28.195s | 12.698s |
22 | LMP2 | T.Gommendy, V.Capillaire, J.Hirschi | Graff | ORECA/Gibson | 3m28.426s | 12.929s |
23 | LMP2 | D.Zollinger, A.Pizzitola, J.Falb | Algarve Pro Racing | ORECA/Gibson | 3m28.457s | 12.960s |
24 | LMP2 | J.Farano, A.Maini, N.Nato | RLR M Sport/Tower Events | ORECA/Gibson | 3m28.803s | 13.306s |
25 | LMP2 | R.Lacorte, G.Sernagiotto, A.Belicchi | Cetilar Villorba Corse | Dallara/Gibson | 3m28.942s | 13.445s |
26 | LMP2 | J.Smiechowski, J.Winslow, N.Moore | Inter Europol Competition | Ligier/Gibson | 3m30.744s | 15.247s |
27 | LMP2 | M.Konopka, H.Enqvist, K.Tereschenko | ARC Bratislava | Ligier/Gibson | 3m34.146s | 18.649s |
28 | LMP2 | E.Creed, R.Ricci, N.Boulle | Larbre Competition | Ligier/Gibson | 3m34.913s | 19.416s |
29 | GTE Pro | N.Thiim, M.Sorensen, D.Turner | Aston Martin Racing | Aston Martin | 3m48.000s | 32.503s |
30 | GTE Pro | A.Priaulx, H.Tincknell, J.Bomarito | Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK | Ford | 3m48.112s | 32.615s |
31 | GTE Pro | J.Magnussen, A.Garcia, M.Rockenfeller | Corvette Racing | Chevrolet | 3m48.830s | 33.333s |
32 | GTE Pro | P.Pilet, E.Bamber, N.Tandy | Porsche GT Team | Porsche | 3m48.907s | 33.410s |
33 | GTE Pro | A.Farfus, A.F.da Costa, J.Krohn | BMW Team MTEK | BMW | 3m49.108s | 33.611s |
34 | GTE Pro | J.Hand, D.Muller, S.Bourdais | Ford Chip Ganassi Team USA | Ford | 3m49.116s | 33.619s |
35 | GTE Pro | M.Christensen, K.Estre, L.Vanthoor | Porsche GT Team | Porsche | 3m49.196s | 33.699s |
36 | GTE Pro | D.Rigon, S.Bird, M.Molina | AF Corse | Ferrari | 3m49.391s | 33.894s |
37 | GTE Pro | S.Mucke, O.Pla, B.Johnson | Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK | Ford | 3m49.511s | 34.014s |
38 | GTE Pro | R.Briscoe, R.Westbrook, S.Dixon | Ford Chip Ganassi Team USA | Ford | 3m49.546s | 34.049s |
39 | GTE Pro | O.Gavin, T.Milner, M.Fassler | Corvette Racing | Chevrolet | 3m49.573s | 34.076s |
40 | GTE Pro | A.P.Guidi, J.Calado, D.Serra | AF Corse | Ferrari | 3m49.655s | 34.158s |
41 | GTE Pro | R.Lietz, G.Bruni, F.Makowiecki | Porsche GT Team | Porsche | 3m49.921s | 34.424s |
42 | GTE Pro | M.Martin, A.Lynn, J.Adam | Aston Martin Racing | Aston Martin | 3m50.037s | 34.540s |
43 | GTE Pro | S.Muller, M.Jaminet, D.Olsen | Porsche GT Team | Porsche | 3m50.278s | 34.781s |
44 | GTE Pro | N.Catsburg, M.Tomczyk, P.Eng | BMW Team MTEK | BMW | 3m51.353s | 35.856s |
45 | GTE Am | S.Hoshino, G.Roda, M.Cairoli | Dempsey-Proton Racing | Porsche | 3m51.439s | 35.942s |
46 | GTE Pro | P.Derani, O.Jarvis, J.Gounon | Risi Competizione | Ferrari | 3m51.454s | 35.957s |
47 | GTE Am | M.Campbell, C.Ried, J.Andlauer | Dempsey-Proton Racing | Porsche | 3m51.645s | 36.148s |
48 | GTE Am | M.Wainwright, B.Barker, T.Preining | Gulf Racing | Porsche | 3m51.944s | 36.447s |
49 | GTE Am | J.Segal, R.Baptista, W.Lu | JMW Motorsport | Ferrari | 3m52.423s | 36.926s |
50 | GTE Am | L.Prette Jr., P.Prette, V.Abril | Proton Competition | Porsche | 3m52.434s | 36.937s |
51 | GTE Am | J.Bergmeister, P.Lindsey, E.Perfetti | Team Project 1 | Porsche | 3m52.750s | 37.253s |
52 | GTE Am | T.Flohr, F.Castellacci, G.Fisichella | Spirit of Race | Ferrari | 3m52.826s | 37.329s |
53 | GTE Am | T.Kimura, K.Cozzolino, C.Ledogar | CarGuy Racing | Ferrari | 3m53.474s | 37.977s |
54 | GTE Am | B.Keating, J.Bleekemolen, F.Fraga | Keating Motorsports | Ford | 3m53.492s | 37.995s |
55 | GTE Am | C.Schiavoni, S.Pianezzola, A.Piccini | Kessel Racing | Ferrari | 3m53.528s | 38.031s |
56 | GTE Am | P.D.Lana, P.Lamy, M.Lauda | Aston Martin Racing | Aston Martin | 3m53.530s | 38.033s |
57 | GTE Am | S.Yoluc, E.Hankey, C.Eastwood | TF Sport | Aston Martin | 3m53.606s | 38.109s |
58 | GTE Am | C.MacNeil, T.Vilander, R.Smith | WeatherTech Racing | Ferrari | 3m53.630s | 38.133s |
59 | GTE Am | M.Ishikawa, O.Beretta, E.Cheever | MR Racing | Ferrari | 3m54.051s | 38.554s |
60 | GTE Am | M.Gostner, R.Frey, M.Gatting | Kessel Racing | Ferrari | 3m54.083s | 38.586s |
61 | GTE Am | L.P.-Companc, M.Griffin, M.Cressoni | Clearwater Racing | Ferrari | 3m54.799s | 39.302s |
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