Alex Lynn took pole for Cadillac at Le Mans, as teammate Earl Bamber ensures a front row lock out for Cadillac and JOTA. Third was the #5 Porsche of Mathieu Jaminet, three tenths off Lynn’s pole lap.
Hyperpole 1 saw 15 cars going for 10 slots in Hyperpole 2, with a 20 minute session followed by a 15 minute session to decide pole.
Hyperpole 1 — Aitken sets benchmark
With seven minutes gone in the first session, the lap times started coming in.
Julien Andlauer, in the #5 Porsche 963, led proceedings, with a 3:23.979, from #36 Alpine A424’s Mick Schumacher, two tenths off. Sebastien Bourdais sat third in the #38 JOTA-run Cadillac V-Series.R, a further tenth and a bit off.
With 10 minutes to go, going out were the #15 BMW of Raffaele Marciello, the #009 Aston Martin Valkyrie of Marco Sorensen, and the #51 Ferrari of Alessandro Pier Guidi. Two cars were yet to set competitive times — Paul Loup Chatin in the #35 Alpine A424, and Ricky Taylor in the #101 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac, both well over 10 seconds off the pace. R. Taylor in particular had had laps deleted for exceeding track limits.
Miguel Molina slotted his #50 Ferrari into second, before virtually all 15 cars pitted to change tyres for a second run. This would ensure teams give their best shot to get through to the Hyperpole 2 session, where they’d use their third set of tyres, with only three allowed for both sessions.
Chatin put his car seventh, his first credited lap time. However, with two minutes to go, disaster for top-placed Julien Andlauer. His car lost its rear left tyre and wheel entering the pits, leaving it lying stranded in the pitlane entrance.
While double waved yellows were waved, luckily the marshals were able to recover it without the session being red flagged.
Will Stevens in the #12 Cadillac went fastest, but was quickly beaten by a magnificent lap from Mick Schumacher in the #36 Alpine, who went fastest with a 3:23.462. This was almost two tenths faster than Stevens, but #8 Toyota’s Brendon Hartley slotted into second, just 0.084 adrift of Schumacher.
The times then started coming thick anbd fast in the dying moments of the session. Jack Aitken finished fastest in the #311 Action Express, Whelen-sponsored Cadillac, with a 3:22.742. It was a Cadillac 1-2, with Bourdais second setting a 3:23.141, four tenths off Aitken. Third was Robin Frijns in the #20 BMW, half a second adrift of Aitken in the red Cadillac.
“It was a really fun lap,” said Aitken after getting out of the car after Hyperpole 1.
“The Cadillac felt incredible. It was just giving more and more. The second lap, I saw the speed was there and I just started to throw everything at the track and it ended up being quite a good one. It’s always fun to drive these cars on low fuel, and to do it on the biggest and baddest circuit here is really fun.”
At the other end of the scale, a shock: the #51 Ferrari 499P of Alessandro Pier Guidi, who was unable to improve on his final lap. He was under a tenth off going through, with Raffaele Marciello ahead in 10th onboard the #15 BMW.
The other four cars out were the #35 Alpine of Paul-Loup Chatin, the #83 AF Corse Ferrari of Ye Yifei, Ricky Taylor in the #101 WTR Cadillac, and Marco Sorensen’s #009 Aston Martin Valkyrie in 15th.
Hyperpole 2 — Lynn takes it
Going into Hyperpole 2, with 10 cars going for pole and only 15 minutes to do it in, it was a frantic few minutes to set a competitive lap time.
But, before that, #8 Toyota’s Sebastien Buemi went off on his first flying lap, going wide at Mulsanne and rejoining, almost into the path of the #50 Ferrari, now with Antonio Fuoco at the wheel.
Representative lap times then started coming in, and the two Porsches were initially top with six minutes to go. Mathieu Jaminet, in the #5 car, set a 3:23.475, half a second up on his teammate Nick Tandy, in the sister #4 car. Alex Lynn sat third in the #12 Cadillac, a further tenth off Tandy.
Buemi, meanwhile, was having more issues and had not set a competitive lap with under five minutes to go.
Back at the sharp end, Lynn went second, 0.319 off Jaminet. But, his next lap was faster, improving in the second sector in particular. Crossing the line he was able to better Jaminet’s lap, by over three tenths.
To make it even better for JOTA and Cadillac, Earl Bamber took second off Jaminet to lock out the front row for American manufacturer and British team. The Kiwi was, at the line, 0.167 off his teammate, and a tenth and a half up on Jaminet.
Porsche’s best was third, then, with Jaminet in the #5 Porsche. Dries Vanthoor took fourth with his final lap, the only representative lap set by the Belgian after the others were deleted for track limits excursions.
Fifth was the sister #5 Porsche of Nick Tandy, with sixth going to the #20 BMW of Sheldon van der Linde. #50 Ferrari’s Antonio Fuoco could only manage seventh, with #311 Cadillac’s Felipe Drugovich eighth, Fred Makowiecki in the #36 Alpine ninth, and Buemi in the #8 Toyota tenth, having not set a representative lap.
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