The fastest driver in qualifying for the 2024 24 Hours of Le Mans, Dries Vanthoor, said that BMW Team WRT were hoping for a red flag before Kamui Kobayashi’s spin brought an early end to the qualifying session.
‘We did a lap in the beginning and then we waited. For sure we were actually hoping for a red flag to then have a good position again after the red flag. But it did not come,’ said the Belgian driver from the #15 BMW M Hybrid V8, in a statement to media.
Kobayashi spun his #7 Toyota GR010 Hybrid at the exit of the Porsche Curves with a few minutes to go. This caused multiple cars and drivers from all classes to miss out on setting final flying laps, having to abandon laps they were on or not being able to start new ones.
In particular, Kobayashi’s teammate Brendon Hartley in the sister #8 Toyota was setting fastest sector times until the red flag put paid to that. Hartley qualified 12th on the road, out of the top eight for Hyperpole, although moved up to 11th with the #7 Toyota’s disqualification for causing the red flag. This means there will be no Toyotas in Hyperpole.
D. Vanthoor, meanwhile, continued: ‘The track improved, we knew that the others improved as well and the car was really good.’
The Belgian set his lap, a 3:24.465, late on in the session, displacing the existing session fastest, Cadillac;s Sebastien Bourdais, who was 0.177 slower and could not go faster in the time remaining.
However, Vanthoor then cautioned that this was not for pole position in the race, and the team still had to go fastest in Hyperpole tomorrow to take pole.
‘So yes, I’m really happy, big thank you to the entire team. We know that it’s only a pole position for now, we still have the Hyperpole and we still have a 24-hour race, but everybody is working flat out since we started the first year so a big thank you to everyone working behind the scenes that you don’t see here and everyone here in and behind the garage.
‘Thanks to BMW M Motorsport, thanks to the team. But we still have a very long race ahead of us,’ he concluded.
“We are happy about this quali lap from Dries. It has been a very strong lap with an incredible third sector,” said Team WRT team principal Vincent Vosse.
Vanthoor’s third sector time was 1:33.097, a tenth and half quicker than the next quickest, from Cadillac’s Alex Lynn, and almost half a second quicker than Bourdais, Lynn’s teammate, plus Ferrari’s Antonio Fuoco.
‘We know that it is not so very important for the race,’ continued Vosse.
There is still Hyperpole tomorrow. Maybe everyone has still there and there to gain something, so everything within the top 8 will be relaunched tomorrow.
‘We also have to be fair that the last two minutes with the red flag helped us. On the other hand it’s a great feeling for the guys who have a very hard job over the last year with the car and to see the car here on provisional pole is a great feeling for the team and of course for BMW M and BMW M Motorsport.’
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